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SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



A L -E T T E K 



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THE HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 



y M. B. SAMPSON. 



Price 62h Cents. 




Class EQ-'+y 

Book -■£ l<? 






SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



A LETTER 



TO 



THE HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 



By M. B. SAMPSON. 



NEW YORK : 

WILEY AND PUTNAM. 

1844. 












. 






l.i IN don : 

Printed hy S. & J. Huntley, Wtlson. ;iml Flfv, 

Bangor llmise, Shoe l.ane. 



c* 

4 



CONTENTS, 



SECTION I. 

PAGE 

OF TIIE INTERESTS INVOLVED IN THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, 
AND TIIE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY SHOULD BE REGARDED 

SECTION II. 

OF TIIE MEASURES HITHERTO TAKEN FOR THE ABOLITION 

OF SLAVERY ........ 20 

SECTION III. 

OF THE MEANS BY WHICH EMANCIPATION SHOULD BE EFFECTED 63 



TO 



THE HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Sir, 

Amidst all that has been written and spoken on 
the question of Slavery in America, I have never 
met with any argument in which the claims of each 
interest seemed to be fairly comprehended. Such 
statements, however, may have been put forth, al- 
though I have not had the fortune to meet with 
them; and I should therefore abstain from enterin c 
upon the subject, but for the belief that in analyzing 
these claims I shall be able to suggest a plan by 
which they may be adjusted. 

Looking at the question as one of primary im- 
portance not only to America but to the world, I 
cannot address this letter more appropriately than 
to yourself. Intended only to promote the practical 
and immediate welfare of all the interests to which 
it refers, it might be submitted indifferently to a 
representative of Northern or Southern views. It 
is because, without reference to those views, you 

B 



2 

are regarded both at home and abroad with a re- 
spect which, in every mind, will survive all dif- 
ferences of the hour, that I seek to gain a patient 
hearing by the influence of your name. 

For the sake of convenience, my remarks will 
be divided into three sections. First, I propose to 
consider the various interests involved in the Abo- 
lition of Slavery, and the extent to which these 
interests should be regarded. Next, to point out the 
evils which must follow any scheme of emancipation 
in which abstract principles are sacrificed to doc- 
trines of expediency, — particularly as exemplified 
in the case of the experiment in the British West 
Indies; and lastly, to suggest a plan which shall 
reconcile the claims of each party, in so far as those 
claims are equitable, and which, avoiding the errors 
of British legislation, shall be capable of immediate 
adoption, without involving the anomalous spectacle 
of a measure righteous in itself leading to calamitous 
results. 

I am, Sir, 

Your faithful Servant, 

M. B. Sampson. 

Clapham New Park, Surrey, England, 
4th November, 1844. 



SECTION I. 

OF THE INTERESTS INVOLVED IN THE ABOLITION OF 
SLAVERY, AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY SHOULD 
BE REGARDED. 

The interests alleged to be opposed to the abolition 
of Slavery are, — the Slave-owners individually; the 
States, whose productive power would be destroyed; 
and the Slave population itself, which is now con- 
trolled and provided for, but which, from a state 
of freedom, would fast retrograde into barbarism. 

1. The claim of the Slave-owner to his right of 
property is often met by a bold denial. It is alleged 
that no law can constitute one man the property 
of another, and in the abstract this is correct. But 
it is possible for a State to make an unjust law, and 
having thus tempted individuals into error, it can- 
not escape, when it sees the wrong which it has 
committed, from its liability to make amends to 
those whom it has misled. The Slave-owner, when 
his legal title is threatened, will plead that, in 
passing the law which gave it to him, the State 
did not seek his individual profit, but its own; that 
no higher exercise of intelligence or morality could 
have been expected from him than that which has 
been manifested by the collective wisdom of his 
countrymen ; and that the act to which a legal sanc- 

b2 



4 

tion had been given, was hardly likely to strike his 
mind as an improper one; that he does not profess 
to be wiser or better than others, and that even on 
points where he has doubts, he might be led to dis- 
card them through faith in the better judgment of 
the majority ; that in all his social relations he has 
only sought to satisfy himself that he was acting 
in obedience to the laws, and that he never dreamed 
he could be legally punished for an act which, at the 
time of its performance, was not recognised as a crime. 
For the State to take from him a legal title which, 
for its own purposes, it voluntarily gave, and for 
which it permitted him to give a consideration, is 
undeniably a punishment, and one the injustice of 
which becomes more apparent, when it is recollected 
that the title was not only given, but promised to 
be maintained, so that any individual, or body of 
individuals attempting to deprive him of it should 
be severely punished. 

If we were to arrive at the conclusion that all laws 
may be abrogated the moment they are discovered 
to be unjust, without providing compensation to those 
who, acting under them, have parted with their 
money, there is very little property in the world that 
could be regarded as secure. To one diffident in his 
own judgment, and unable, in all cases, even with 
an earnest desire, to ascertain the true path, it would 
be no guide that he is supported by the law. " It 
sanctions such and such a course to-day," he might 
reflect, " and if I invest my money I am told that it 



will be safe, that my title will be good, and that 
those who deprive me of it will be punished. But 
I am not able to determine its inherent morality; 
to-morrow the State may discover that it is wrongly- 
founded, and I may be a ruined man." It is con- 
sidered by many that the largest portion of the 
National Debt of Great Britain was contracted to 
carry on unjust wars, for which the future energies 
of the people were recklessly pledged; but even if 
the impolicy and injustice of these wars were uni- 
versally admitted, no one would think of visiting 
upon the individual lender the consequences arising 
from the errors of the State. The majority of the 
mind of England gave sanction to them, and the 
same majority must provide the means of meeting 
their disagreeable results. 

But it may be urged that, admitting the liability 
of the State, where there are two parties to an unjust 
transaction, the one should bear the same proportion 
as the other. That the Slave-owner and the Govern- 
ment should divide the loss. This argument, how- 
ever, will not hold good. It is the law itself which 
is unjust; the after acts of individuals are merely 
its inevitable consequences. The question, therefore, 
simply is, what share had the Slave-owner in the 
framing and maintenance of the law which declared 
negroes to be " property," and what is to be his 
consequent proportion of the loss to be sustained by 
its abolition. His share was precisely that of an 
individual, and nothing further, and all that he can 



be called upon to bear is his proportion of such tax 
as may be necessary to defray the compensation to 
be given. Each member of the aggregate body by 
whom the investment of capital in Slave-holding was 
sanctioned, is liable to the same responsibility as the 
one who acted on that sanction. 

The best way in all cases to ascertain the duty of 
a State, is to see what it would be just for an indi- 
vidual to do under like circumstances. The State 
is merely the representative of the justice of the 
many. It says to individuals, " We take power out 
of your hands, because if you were permitted to use 
it, you would be swayed by personal feelings, which 
would cause you to act dishonestly. If you could 
set those feelings aside, and deal to every man justly 
and impartially, there would be no occasion for a 
government : but this is out of the question, and a 
central power must be established, which, owing to 
its being (as an aggregate of the many) free from 
private bias, will be able to do in each case what 
it would be right for the individual to do if it were 
possible to trust him." Whatever, therefore, it is 
proper to demand from an individual it is, above all, 
proper to demand from a government. 

Now, if a person delegated to represent the interests 
of the many, and known to possess the best means of 
collecting information and forming a judgment, were, 
in the exercise of his discretion, to tempt another to 
embark money in a particular direction, by under- 
taking, on behalf of his constituents, to execute a 



certain title-deed, and to maintain its legality, (it 
being generally understood that he was entitled to 
perform such an act,) what course should we require 
of him, as an honest man, upon his making the dis- 
covery that the title he has professed to execute ap- 
plies to an object to which no legitimate possession 
can attach — that he had never, in fact, any right to 
give it, and that it is expedient, therefore, to cancel 
the whole transaction? Most assuredly he is bound 
to say to the party whom he has misled, " You paid 
so much, as the value of the title which you received 
from me, and the legality of which, as an inducement 
for you to carry out my views, I promised to main- 
tain. This promise I now find I cannot in conscience 
keep. I am aware, that in giving it I did not make 
any reservation in my own behalf; that in under- 
taking to protect your title against all other parties, 
I did not reserve the right of depriving you of it 
myself; nor did I give you leave to suppose that the 
undertaking was only for a specific period. It was 
altogether unlimited, and was put forth for the pur- 
pose of inducing you to invest your capital in a mode 
which I believed to have been for the advantage of 
those whom I represent. I have, therefore, no alter- 
native, in taking back that which I indiscreetly gave, 
but to pay its market value, — a value upon which 
you have doubtless based all your proceedings. If 
I am unable to do this, if I assume the right to 
break my pledge, and at the same time refuse you 
an equivalent, of course, for the future I must be 



8 

prepared to find that my word will be rejected by- 
all men." 

Tims then, although the law which constitutes one 
man the property of another is inherently unjust, it 
is binding in the country where it exists between the 
State and individuals. If the State has erroneously 
recognized such property, and has contracted in good 
faith, for its own ends, that the right of possession 
shall be held sacred, it is especially bound in its own 
person to recognize the obligation, or to make amends 
for its non-fulfilment. 

On the other hand, the relative position of the 
Slave and his master admits of no discussion. It is 
founded and maintained in fraud, and fraud only, 
and of course cannot be recognized by other powers, 
or by the Slave himself. The inalienable rights of 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, have not 
been so inefficiently upheld by the wise through all 
the struggles of advancing civilization, as to admit of 
their appearing among the unsettled questions of the 
nineteenth century. 

In the case of the African, it is sometimes pleaded 
that his condition is greatly improved by his cap- 
tivity amongst white men ; but this does not palliate 
the means by which the improvement has been 
brought about The condition of a human being 
who has passed his days in virtue, is raised beyond 
all conception by his release from this life; but the 
murderer who helps him to Heaven must not expect 
on that account to escape retribution. 



9 

We must recognize, therefore, the institution of 
Slavery as sinful without mitigation, and that it is 
the perfect right of the Slave to break his bonds 
whenever practicable. It would be well, however, 
that the acknowledgment of this right should always 
be accompanied by explanation. The great doctrines 
upon which is based the argument for emancipation 
also proclaim the sin of meeting violence by violence. 
He, therefore, who would instil into the Slave the 
propriety of resorting to any means inconsistent with 
a forgiveness even of the tyrant who has most tres- 
passed against him, counsels him to reject the very 
creed upon which rests the surest hopes of the free- 
dom of his race. There are, I fear, some who pro- 
fess themselves friends of the slave who will renounce 
this application of the doctrine; but to the common 
heart it will commend itself by its simple truth. All 
attempts to arouse the fears of the Slave-owner by 
threats or attempts of violence, have only led to in- 
creased severities and a stronger dislike of emancipa- 
tion; while by stimulating the lower feelings of the 
negro they must have tended to subdue those quali- 
ties of his nature by which alone he can permanently 
hope to defeat the injustice of his oppressors. If it 
is possible for the slave to escape without fraud or 
violence, it is his duty to do so, — otherwise it is his 
duty to submit to his lot, and to regard it as the 
will of that Being who will requite in his own time, 
and who has expressly forbidden a return of treachery 
for treachery, or blow for blow. 



10 

2. Having thus considered the interests of the 
Slave-owner individually, and the extent to which 
his position is to be respected, we have now to con- 
template the effect which the abolition of Slavery 
would produce upon the interests of the State. 

Of the two great arguments commonly used on 
this head — the danger of a war of races, and the 
certain ruin which must result from diminished pro- 
duction — the latter only is worthy of attention. It 
is against all experience to suppose that those who 
have shown docility and patience under oppression 
and ill-treatment, will all at once assume an oppo- 
site nature when their grievances are removed. The 
supposition is also at variance with the oft-repeated 
assertion made by Southern men in defence of 
Slavery, that the negroes, in their present state, are 
contented, happy, and well-cared for, and feel a 
strong affection for the families of their owners. 
This state of things could only have grown up under 
a mild rule, and it is therefore vain to allege in the 
face of it, that the negroes are only kept from at- 
tempting to exterminate the whites by the superior 
force which the latter, by means of the institution 
of Slavery, are enabled constantly to exercise. It 
may be said that the advantage consists in the power 
to check any combination for violent ends; but it 
would be unreasonable to assume that a race of " con- 
tented and affectionate" people are only waiting for 
the power to combine in order to become discon- 
tented and savage; that it is a peculiarity, in fact, of 
peaceable natures to become fierce and malignant in 



11 

the aggregate! If, however, reason were not suffi- 
cient to decide this point, the example of the Bri- 
tish West Indies would be conclusive. In no State of 
America does the negro population preponderate more 
over the Avhite than in South Carolina, where it is 
335,314 against 259,084, while in British Guiana, 
in 1834, it was 71,916 against 3006. If the experi- 
ment of complete emancipation has taken place safely 
in Guiana, it may surely be attempted elsewhere 
without dread ; * and, apart from the evidence of the 
docility of the negro, it must seem a satire upon the 
white population of the Southern States, to suppose 
them doubtful of their skill and courage to counteract 
any possible " combination" of an equal number of 
that race, whose intellect and energies they have ever 
held in scorn. 

So abundant are the evidences of the feebleness of 
the blacks, and their generally inactive and submis- 
sive spirit, that the argument of fear, when urged by 
the white man, appears to be degrading to the posi- 
tion which he occupies, and one which the advocates 
of emancipation should therefore treat with utter dis- 
regard. The other argument, however, to which I 
have alluded, the effects of emancipation in causing 
diminished production, is one of undeniable weight. 

* In the Island of Mauritius the population was S844 white 
against 84,464 coloured. Of the slaves, about 40,000 are estimated 
to have been imported Africans, and consequently far less ripe for 
freedom than those in the other British possessions, or in the 
United States. Yet this island formed no exception to the general 
results. 



12 

That sudden freedom of choice on the part of the 
negro between labour and idleness would always be 
followed, more or less, by a selection of the latter, 
was a fact easily to be inferred from his physical con- 
stitution: nor was it indeed often denied until the 
ardour of debate occasionally outran discretion. The 
result of the experiment in the British possessions 
has at length effectually closed all discussion on the 
point, and shown that the anticipations of evil in 
respect to it have a solid foundation. 

I recognize this argument, therefore, as possessing 
great weight, not in opposition to emancipation, but 
in opposition to any plan of emancipation in which 
it shall not have been duly considered. It is a simple 
task to sweep away evils if we are reckless as to 
those we substitute in their place ; but it is the na- 
ture of all truly righteous acts to be free from attend- 
ant mischief. Now, to the extent that emancipation 
causes a diminution of labour, it must not only throw 
land out of cultivation, and produce individual ruin, 
but deprive a large portion of the inhabitants of the 
globe of the necessaries of life. The English peasant 
must pay more for her cotton gown, and the farmer 
of New York must diminish his consumption of sugar; 
and although deprivations of this kind may at first 
sight appear simple, they are certain to produce 
many disastrous results both on the moral and phy- 
sical condition of mankind. It will not do, therefore, 
to exclaim, " Such things are not to be heeded. Our 
first great duty is to get rid of the crying sin of 



13 

Slavery, at all hazards, and without regard to conse- 
quences." The Creator has so ordered the world 
that even here prosperity is a certain result of virtue ; 
and the power of showing that such is the case forms 
one of our strongest aids in awakening the sordid- 
minded to His will. If, therefore, in carrying out 
any measure of duty we act so as to bring injurious 
consequences immediately in its train, we destroy our 
most convincing argument to induce others to do 
likewise. With regard to emancipation in the Bri- 
tish colonies, it has been well observed, " An effort 
must be made to show those tropical countries which 
still cling to Slavery, that this moral triumph has 
entailed no counterbalancing sacrifice; that economi- 
cally, as well as morally, all parties have gained by 
the change. If this can be done, the slave-holding 
countries will follow our example from interested 
motives; and the abolition of Slavery will create that 
high and delicate sense of the rights of all human 
beings, which at present does not exist among them, 
and to which, therefore, we should appeal in vain. 
On the other hand, if we do not succeed in making free 
labour at least as available as slave labour, we shall 
have given to the Slave-owners an additional motive 
for adhering to Slavery, and, by affording them an ad- 
vantage over us in the markets of the world, a stimulus 
to increase the number of their slaves and the activity 
of the slave-trade." That these results have actually 
taken place is now matter of history; and it there- 
fore more especially behoves those who may hereafter 



14 

legislate for the abolition of Slavery to guard against 
the evil. 

If, indeed, we arrive at the conviction that there 
is no way of stepping from sin but such as in its 
first effects shall lead to disaster, — that the imme- 
diate consequence of a return to obedience must in- 
evitably be bitter — it will of course be our duty to 
submit to it ; but reason and experience combine to show 
that sacrifices of this kind are not required, and that 
they only follow as the penalty of our own imperfect 
plans. In the case of emancipation being effected 
without any arrangement to prevent a diminution of 
produce, the poor sugar consumer of civilized coun- 
tries is exposed to daily privations destructive of 
health and comfort, which are comparatively unfelt by 
his wealthy neighbour; and hence a glaring disparity 
is evident in the distribution of the suffering conse- 
quent on the measure. That such a disparity could not 
arise under the laws of Providence as the necessary 
working of an arrangement wholly just, will be ad- 
mitted by all. It is a contingency which the framers 
of an Emancipation Act are bound to provide 
against; and the plea that the great end of their 
plan is a righteous one, will no more justify neglect 
on this point than it would if we were to bring a 
man into the open air after we had wrongfully confined 
him amidst infection, without taking precautions that 
the act of justice should not cause injury to others. 
Of course if no party is able to suggest a less im- 
perfect method of carrying out a paramount duty 



15 

than one which involves a disregard of minor duties, 
which should be concurrently performed, it is best to 
act as far as our light will go, but we must not com- 
plain when we experience the natural consequences 
of our want of clear perceptions, nor regard them as 
unavoidably flowing from obedience to the Divine 
laws. At the same time, also, we are bound to look 
with more leniency on those who, under such circum- 
stances, refuse to follow our example, than if instead 
of rejecting truth in an imperfect form, they could 
be charged with spurning her when presented to 
them in her fair proportions. 

3. The remaining argument that the welfare of 
the negro is involved in the continuance of Slavery, 
since the restraint to which he is subjected is essen- 
tial to prevent him from falling into barbarism, is 
wholly unsupported by experience. Even supposing 
the effects of emancipation to be such as to drive the 
white population from the country, owing to their 
inability to render it productive, there is no reason 
to believe that the condition of the negro in his 
uncontrolled state would be lower than it is at pre- 
sent. In Hayti, where the most unfavourable cir- 
cumstances have been presented, the course of the 
people is still stated to have been one of progress 
rather than of retrogression, and " the population has 
been doubled by a natural increase since the estab- 
lishment of freedom." 

It may be said that it is in opposition to the fact 
of the negro having been raised in the social scale 



16 

by transportation from freedom in Africa to Slavery 
in the West, to suppose that his improvement would 
not be stopped by permitting him, without restric- 
tion, to select his own mode of life. But such is 
not the case. The negro does not advance in Africa, 
because a pestilential climate keeps all white men 
from its shores, save those who, by means of the 
Slave-trade, brutalize the natives, and divert them 
from the pursuits of industry ; but on the continent 
of America the negro, even if he dwelt in a com- 
munity of his own, would be brought constantly 
under the influence of traders and missionaries, and 
although his improvement would be slow, it would 
not be suspended. It would proceed, indeed, at a 
greater pace than can ever be hoped for under 
Slavery; more especially such Slavery as that which 
now exists in the United States, where the predomi- 
nant effort of the master is avowedly to crush the 
development of all moral or intellectual power. That 
any condition of unregulated freedom is superior to 
Slavery is also supported by the fact that the free 
coloured population of the Southern States (described 
by Southern orators as occupying the most unfavour- 
able position in which the African race could by any 
possibility be placed) show a duration of life far 
exceeding that of their servile brethren. 

But although the argument of the maintenance of 
Slavery being desirable for the welfare of the negro 
is wholly untenable, it must be admitted that any 
plan of emancipation will prove vitally defective 



17 

which fails to provide the certainty of his steady and 
rapid advance. The condition of the people of St. 
Domingo and Liberia, although it may be one of 
progress, is certainly not such as to present to 
slave-holding countries any very striking conception 
of the injury they inflict upon the race by with- 
holding from them their liberty; nor can the act 
of unriveting their chains, and permitting them to 
vegetate in freedom, be regarded as a fulfilment of 
what is due for three centuries of wrong. However 
gratifying might be the act of Abolition, it would be 
a bitter disgrace to a civilized people to permit it to 
be accompanied by the avowal that with all their 
intelligence they are unable to devise a means to 
avert the disastrous idleness which threatens to result 
from it, and which, by preventing any satisfactory 
advance of the long-injured race, if not by leading 
to their actual deterioration, would rob the measure 
of its brightest fruits. For any plan, therefore, to 
be thoroughly welcome to the friend of the negro, 
it is essential that it should provide against the 
danger of his falling into that degree of sloth, the 
proverbial root of all evil, which would impede 
his progress in civilization; and although the want 
of power to suggest such a provision is not to be 
admitted as an argument against the demand for 
immediate emancipation any more than the want of 
power to devise a preventive for the falling off of 
the productive capabilities of the country, it would, 
as in that case, show the friends of emancipation to 

c 



18 

be but indifferently prepared to fulfil one of the chief 
duties which the act involves, and that a further 
palliation might therefore be offered for the resist- 
ance directed against their efforts. 

The conditions which the foregoing considerations 
present as essential to any successful plan for the 
Abolition of Slavery, are : — 

1st, That it shall provide full compensation from 
the State to each individual Slave-owner. 

2nd, That it shall not compromise the prosperity 
of the State, by causing a diminution of its produc- 
tive power. 

And lastly, That means shall be taken to prevent 
the negro from sinking into slothfulness, and to re- 
pair the injustice of the past by zealous efforts to cle- 
velope his energies and raise him in the social scale. 

Of these, the provision for compensation to the 
Slave-owner is to be regarded as absolutely indispen- 
sable; the other two are so far essential that the 
neglect of them would amount to neglect of obvious 
duties, and would consequently involve severe cala- 
mities : but they differ from the first, inasmuch as if 
we were unable to see our way to enforce them, this 
inability would not justify a moment's delay in relin- 
quishing the sin of slavery. It would amount to a 
grievous omission, a want of prudence and fore- 
sight, but not to the committal of a direct wrong. 
But in carrying out emancipation by a direct breach 
of faith with the planter, we should merely be substi- 
tuting one wrong for another ; and although the new 
sin may be apparently less than that which it dis- 



19 

places — although we do a small evil that a great good 
may come — we must remember that in no case is it 
permitted for us to seek our ends by conduct of this 
description. So long as we do not see that we can 
work towards the good we desire by wholly unexcep- 
tionable means, we may be sure that we have not yet 
hit upon the true path, and that it is our duty still 
to pause — not in apathy, but with an earnest seeking 
for direction, and the assurance that our efforts will 
be rewarded. It is therefore better that Slavery 
should not be abolished, than that it should be abo- 
lished by denying compensation, because this would 
amount to the sin of acknowledging sufficient light 
to recognize the laws of God, and daring, while in 
possession of it, to assert that they can be worked out 
by fraudulent designs. 

The eagerness to carry out a favourite point by 
measures, of the perfect justness of which we entertain 
a doubt, is a sure way to retard our final aim. That 
justice cannot be inconsistent with itself, that there 
must be some way of redressing every evil which shall 
be free from injury to any human being, should al- 
ways be borne in mind, and each scheme rejected, 
until that one is presented which satisfies the con- 
science as being consistent with integrity to all. If 
we o'erleap these points, and professing to serve 
Heaven, offend, for the sake of " expediency," in the 
slightest degree against our sense of duty, we destroy 
that coherency which, can alone give strength and 
beauty to our plan, and introduce at once the elements 
of its ruin. 

c 2 



20 



SECTION II. 

OF THE MEASURES HITHERTO TAKEN FOR THE 
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 

Having considered the points to be provided for 
in any measure which may be proposed for the 
Abolition of Slavery, it is proper to review the means 
which have already been taken or suggested by the 
United States or other nations for their accomplish- 
ment. If we can find in any quarter that the diffi- 
culties connected with them have been fairly met 
and overcome, the trouble of further inquiry will 
be spared, and America can have no pretext for a 
single moment to delay emancipation. If, however, 
only a portion of them have been got over, the task 
still devolves upon us of providing for the remainder ; 
while, if none can be shown to have been success- 
fully grappled with, we shall have to discard all 
consideration of what has already been proposed or 
adopted — useful only as a warning — and to suggest 
an independent plan. 

The British Emancipation Act, of 1833, stands 
forth as the measure upon the success of which the 
progress of emancipation in other slave-holding 
countries was considered greatly to depend. De- 



21 

praved as mankind may be, no doubt can exist that 
the majority, if unperverted by false fears of damage 
to themselves, would prefer to show kindness instead 
of cruelty to their fellow-men; and it was therefore 
reasonable to entertain a certain trust, that if the 
measure adopted by Great Britain should be found 
to produce or threaten no injurious consequences, 
it would, after a fair trial, be speedily imitated by 
other nations. Such imitation has, however, in no 
single instance taken place. Eleven years have 
passed, and although the friends of emancipation in 
the United States and elsewhere, have used their 
constant efforts to hold up the example of Great 
Britain, and to pourtray in the brightest terms the 
results of her experiment, the feeling on the question, 
so far from having advanced, has undergone a most 
unfavourable change, and the prospects of the co- 
loured race are less hopeful now than at any former 
period. The inquiry suggests itself, Can this effect 
have arisen from the working of a judicious measure, 
or is it the natural consequence of attempting to 
achieve a good end by unjust and imperfect means? 
and an examination as to how far the British Act 
was framed in accordance with the conditions which, 
in the preceding section, have been shown to be 
essential to success, will lead us to an answer. 

These conditions required that provision should be 
made for compensation to the planter, for the mainte- 
nance of the productive power of the country, and for 
the certain advancement of the coloured population. 



22 

There appear to nie to be few instances of more 
fatal delusion than that which is nursed by the 
people of England regarding the compensation voted 
by Parliament to the parties interested in this ques- 
tion. From the commencement of the debates by 
which that vote was preceded, down to the present 
time, a constant outpouring of self-gratulation has 
always attended any reference to the matter. It 
was originally announced as "a costly sacrifice," 
widely spoken of in the House of Commons as a 
" lavish sum," a " munificent gift," " an instance 
of magnanimity such as never occurred before," &c, 
and universally admitted out of doors, and even by 
foreign nations, as a" noble vindication of the right 
of property." Subsequently it has been described not 
only by ardent abolitionists, but by political econo- 
mists as " a measure reflecting quite as much credit 
on the wisdom and honesty as on the generosity of the 
British Nation ;" and these ideas (too agreeable to the 
national vanity to stimulate any very close question- 
ing from less informed persons) meeting with uni- 
versal reception, have led to a belief not only that 
our past sins in connexion with Slavery have been 
effectually wiped out, but that England is entitled 
to boast of her singular virtue, and to cast stones at 
those countries which refuse to imitate her example. 

A little consideration would dissipate this error. 
It must readily be perceived that the Act of Eman- 
cipation was nothing more than an act to provide for 
the abandonment of a heinous sin, in which the State 



23 

of Great Britain had through a long period indulged ; 
and that even if its provisions had been framed in per- 
fect wisdom and justice, the spirit in which it should 
have been adopted was that of deep humiliation for 
the past, together with a sense that in merely ab- 
staining from a continuance in wickedness, we could 
certainly acquire no right to boast of having done 
anything to claim the especial praises of our fellow- 
men. Under the most favourable circumstances, 
therefore, the subdued tone of sincere repentance 
would have been alone appropriate, coupled with that 
patient interpretation of the sins of others which a 
newly awakened consciousness of our own enormities 
is calculated to beget. But the mode in which 
the claim for compensation was dealt with, was not 
such as to entitle us even to the amount of gratifica- 
tion which might thus have been enjoyed, since it 
was characterized by features of injustice, showing 
too plainly that we were not prepared to effect our 
withdrawal from the sin of Slavery without com- 
mitting a new infringement of the moral law. 

In bringing forward his plan, Lord Stanley (then 
Mr. Secretary Stanley,) having distinctly recognized 
the claim of the planters to full compensation for the 
withdrawal of their legal title to property in the 
coloured race, took as his estimate of the value of 
that property the sum of thirty millions sterling, 
being 800,000 slaves at 37/. 10s. each; and the way 
in which he proposed to meet this amount was by 
a direct payment of twenty millions, and by conti- 



24 

nuing to the holders a right of property in the labour 
of the negroes for periods (according to their class 
as predial or non-predial) of twelve and seven years, 
the value of such labour being considered as equi- 
valent to the balance. It will be seen from this that 
the Government, after admitting the utter sinfulness 
of Slavery, refused to abolish it at once, and entered 
into a sort of composition ; they were willing to incur 
a certain expense, but could not summon resolution 
to meet the full amount. Thirty millions being re- 
quired, they could make up their minds to go as 
far as twenty; and to raise the remaining ten, they 
resolved to rob the negro of his labour for a further 
period of twelve years. It is true, a pretext was 
urged for this course, that " immediate emancipation 
would be no less ruinous to the slave than to the 
master;" and that the period for the prolongation of 
Slavery " under the specious title of apprenticeships, 
where nothing was to be learned, and no wages were 
to be paid," was alleged to be necessary as a proba- 
tion. But, even if we admit the necessity of en- 
forcing the labour of the negro for a certain term 
preparatory to complete emancipation, it is difficult 
to see how it justifies the appropriation of the value 
of that labour. The work might have been enforced 
so as to keep up the industry and discipline of the 
negroes, while the ten millions, at which it was esti- 
mated, might have been paid over to them ; or if it 
had been deemed dangerous to place them suddenly in 
possession of money, it might have been reserved for 



25 

their benefit at some future period. Apart from 
this, however, the plea for the necessity of the ap- 
prenticeship, as far as regarded a large class of the 
negroes (if not the whole of them), was shown at 
the time to be completely untenable, for no one 
attempted to assert that the class of artificers and 
mechanics were not fit for instant liberty. Although, 
therefore, it may be admitted that as respects two- 
thirds of the required payment, the British Govern- 
ment were disposed to act honestly, it is obvious 
that the " noble example of the maintenance of the 
right of property," as far as it was involved in the 
remaining third, was to be upheld only at the ex- 
pense of the coloured race. 

Still, under this arrangement — supposing the esti- 
mate of the value of the Slaves at thirty millions to 
have been fairly made — the compensation to the 
planters would have been complete, however question- 
able the means of raising it. If it had been carried 
out, no question, as far as the strict maintenance of 
the right of property amongst ourselves was concern- 
ed, it could have been raised ; and although reproach 
would still have attached to the Government, it 
would have arisen simply from the fact that after 
having sinned for upwards of two centuries, upon 
awakening at last to a sense of their guilt, they had 
thought it better to continue sinning for twelve years 
longer than to increase their payment of twenty mil- 
lions to thirty. The doctrine promulgated by this 
line of conduct being, that it is inexpedient to pursue 



26 

virtue at all costs, and that there is a point at which 
a continuance in wickedness may be permitted by 
Providence to prove more profitable than a departure 
from it. 

But the full compensation declared by the Minister 
to be due, was not destined to be paid even in this 
or any other form. During the progress of the de- 
bate, the advocates of the negro succeeded in showing 
that there was no just ground, even as a matter of 
safety, for prolonging the state of Slavery, under the 
title of apprenticeship, for the periods proposed ; and 
Lord Stanley, finding that he could not carry the 
measure if he persisted in that prolongation, reduced 
the periods from twelve and seven years to seven 
years and five. The question naturally arises, In 
what way was this reduction made up to the Slave- 
owner ? The Minister had stated that " he had 
considered the period of apprenticeship to be part of 
the compensation paid to the proprietor," and it is 
evident that upon a reduction of this part, it became 
necessary that an increase should be made in some 
other way. To the consequent interrogatory " Whe- 
ther, as lie had reduced the period of apprenticeship, 
lie intended to increase the compensation?" a simple 
reply in the negative was given, Government having 
previously admitted the breach of faith, by announc- 
ing that " They had strenuously endeavoured to 
perform their portion of the engagement ; but from 
the claims made upon them it became impossible, 
notwithstanding their utmost exertions, to carry it 



27 

into effect." Having no choice but to break their 
pledge, or to resign, they determined on the former 
course; and of just so much compensation as was 
represented by the term of apprenticeship taken off, 
the proprietors were consequently defrauded. 

Thus then upon the confession of the Minister this 
very measure of compensation, so universally quoted 
as a noble instance of national integrity, was marked 
by a breach of faith which has few parallels in 
modern legislation. The proceeding, indeed, was so 
flagrant, that no excuses were attempted ; and it was 
evidently the nearly unanimous feeling of Parliament 
that it had better be suffered to pass unnoticed. It 
was seen that a call for the sum necessary to make 
up the thirty millions would meet with universal 
opposition, and no one was prepared with a plan by 
which justice might have been satisfied without so 
fearful a drain upon the resources of the country; a 
drain which, owing to the system of taxation, must 
have fallen chiefly on the industrious classes. Al- 
though, therefore, every member must have felt that 
the sum awarded was an unjust sum — that the pro- 
prietors were entitled to nothing or to more, the in- 
justice, in the eagerness to gain a certain end, was 
wilfully overlooked, and evil was deliberately sanc- 
tioned that good might come. 

It will, perhaps, be alleged that the fact of the 
planters having consented to receive the compensa- 
tion awarded, shows that no breach of faith can be 
considered to have taken place, the two parties being 



28 

entitled to make what bargain they pleased. But 
this plea is denied, because the planters were not left 
to their own free action, but driven by intimidation 
to accept the terms proposed. The Government were 
aware that by the discussion of emancipation the ex- 
pectations of the coloured population had become 
excited to a pitch at which disappointment would 
have proved dangerous, that the unreflecting masses 
in England were determined also to have the measure 
passed without inquiring very rigidly into .the means, 
and that consequently if the planters refused what 
was offered, they would, as the excitement increased, 
have to be content with less. The intimidation thus 
created proved sufficient to induce the consent of 
the West India interest, and also perhaps to impress 
them with gratification at having got off so well : but 
there is evidence that this gratification was only such 
as is felt by men who, having fallen into powerful 
and unscrupulous hands, find that by giving up a 
portion of their property they will be permitted to 
escape with the remainder. 

So notorious was the existence of this intimidation, 
that unreproved references to the advantages to be 
derived from it were of constant occurrence during 
the debates. " Wait for a little period," urged some 
members, " and a fourth of the money will be quite 
sufficient;" and one member more ardent than the 
rest, after connecting the " growing intelligence " of 
the people with a probability of their " sponging off 
the national debt," animated by the advantage which 



29 

the Government had already taken of the fears of 
those with whom they had to deal, urged it very 
naturally as a plea for further spoliation. " We had 
a contest with Ministers the other day, and what has 
been the result? They yielded. Was ever such con- 
duct witnessed on the part of any Ministry before? 
Did not Ministers pledge themselves to the West 
India body to give them twenty millions and twelve 
years' apprenticeship ? and yet after that contest, they 
the next day, without notice, came to a decision to 
take off six years of that term; and the West India 
interest gave in, for they were afraid. But if you on 
this side of the House will be but united as you ought 
to be — if one hundred and fifty of you will but stand 
by one another, I will be bound that the Ministers 
will give up everything." 

In condemning the breach of faith which was 
thus practised on the Slave-owner, it is not necessary 
to overlook the misconduct of his class. In no case 
can the character of the party with whom we have 
to deal bear in the slightest degree upon a ques- 
tion of right, save that it is necessary for us to act 
with more scrupulous fairness in our dealings with 
the corrupt than with the virtuous, inasmuch as any 
deviation into which we might fall would be attri- 
buted by the upright to unintentional error, while by 
the unprincipled it would be perpetuated as an ex- 
ample. It was urged amidst the many unweighed 
suggestions which abounded on all sides, that the 
planters should be deprived of compensation on ac- 



30 

count of their having broken their engagement to 
assist in promoting the Ministerial scheme. This 
scheme was agreed to be carried out by the Govern- 
ment on the understanding that the planters should 
co-operate ; and if the planters failed to perform this 
part of their engagement, the Ministers were obvi- 
ously at liberty to cancel the entire bargain. But 
the cancelment of a bargain to work out emancipa- 
tion by a particular method, could give them no right 
to do more than change it for some other method, 
consistent with honesty (which of course might be 
adopted independently of the consent of the planters), 
or else to leave the question undisturbed. In the 
House of Commons, however, an opinion seemed pre- 
valent that because the planters had agreed upon a 
certain mode of giving up a legal right, and had 
afterwards failed to fulfil their part of the agreement, 
it became just for the Government to take that right 
from them by force, although in the contract there 
was no stipulation for such a penalty. 

Having shown that the course pursued by Great 
Britain regarding compensation cannot be taken as 
an example by other nations, the Government, not- 
withstanding their immense resources, having been 
either incapable or unwilling to grant its full 
amount; the next step will be to examine if her 
plan of emancipation included that which is to be 
regarded as the second element of success ; — viz : a 
due provision for the maintenance of the productive 
power of the country. 



31 

That a reduction in the work performed by the 
negroes would be the result of emancipation, unless 
some measures could be designed to avert it, was 
foreseen by the British Government: and the plan 
adopted to meet the evil was, as we have seen, the 
establishment of a period of apprenticeship or modi- 
fied Slavery preparatory to complete abolition. Into 
the provisions of -this plan it is unnecessary to enter, 
its failure having been so complete as to lead to its 
discontinuance in the various colonies on the 1st of 
August, 1838. At that period, therefore, the negro 
was suffered to come into possession of unrestricted 
freedom, without any further method having been 
devised by the Government for guarding against his 
withdrawal from steady labour. The consequences 
of this neglect in diminishing the productive power 
of the West India colonies were such, to use the 
words of a Report of a Committee of the House of 
Commons on West Africa, as to give " an extraor- 
dinary stimulus to the Slave-trade for the supply of 
Cuba and Brazil," and the extent to which the dimi- 
nution of produce took place will be shown by the 
following tables : — 



32 



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33 

On this head it has been remarked :* " The extent 
to which the quantity of produce annually raised 
in the British sugar colonies was reduced, and the 
cost of production enhanced by emancipation, is start- 
ling to contemplate. The decrease in production 
was not confined to sugar; it extended to all the 
staple products of these colonies ; and it can be shown 
that it was occasioned by the consequences of eman- 
cipation alone. 

" It has been proved by the evidence given to the 
West- India Committee of the House of Commons, 
that from 1837 to 1840, in British Guiana much 
less work was done in every stage of cultivation; 
that production had fallen off, and some estates had 
been put out of cultivation. In Trinidad the difficulty 
of procuring continuous labour was such, that Mr. 
Burnley assured the committee, were he proprietor of 
every estate in the island he would throw the half 
out of cultivation, convinced that he could produce 
more by concentrating the work of the available 
labourers on the rest. In Jamaica the produce of 
the large estates was reduced one half, and the 
estates of the poorer proprietors were entirely de- 
serted by the labourers. In Grenada no estates had 
been actually thrown out of cultivation, but the crops 
had been so diminished that the result was much the 
same." 

It will thus be seen that, as far as regards the 
second point to be provided for, the British measure of 

* Spectator, 15 April, 1843. 

D 



34 

emancipation affords no safe example ; and it now only 
remains for ns to inquire if it gives any guiding light 
upon the third point, viz. ; the duty of providing for 
the certain advancement of the coloured population. 

That a great advance has taken place in the 
intellectual and moral condition of the negroes in 
some of the West India Islands, from the date of the 
Emancipation Act, must be admitted by all who will 
consult the various statements put forth since that 
time. In Jamaica, the calm and cheerful antici- 
pations which grew out of the reports of their admir- 
able conduct on the 1st of August, 1838 — the open- 
ing day of freedom — have been more than fulfilled; 
and there is ground to believe that under a con- 
tinuance of favourable circumstances a degree of 
civilization would be reached, in which they would 
not suffer by comparison with the labouring classes 
of other countries. 

The progress which has thus taken place may be 
attributed to the faithful efforts of their religious 
teachers, and to the vigilance of the Home Govern- 
ment in enforcing the fair working of the new system. 
The Emancipation Act itself made no actual pro- 
vision for the advancement of the negro, but merely 
set him free to work out his own progress, and to 
conquer the effects of past ill-usage. The results, 
therefore, as far as they have gone, will probably 
be quoted to show that nothing more was necessary ; 
but a little reflection will satisfy us that such an 
argument would not hold good, and that the course 



35 

of Great Britain has been as short-sighted upon this 
point as upon those we have already considered. 

If the negro lias already advanced morally and 
intellectually, so as to fulfil all ordinary anticipations, 
what more, it will be asked, can be required? It 
is plain that this state of things would be perfectly 
satisfactory, with one proviso, viz. ; the certainty 
that it is not a merely temporary progress, but such . 
as will be steadily maintained. 

This certainty is wholly wanting, and there is 
evidence that the prospect is of the most precarious 
kind. No effective mode having been devised by 
the Government to ensure the constant industry of 
the negroes, their labour since 1838 has only been 
attained at an enormous cost, and in an uncertain 
manner. It is true that the acquisitive propensity 
strongly marks their character; but the activity of 
this one impulse has not proved sufficient to over- 
come, even partially, their constitutional indolence, 
except when stimulated to a great degree. The 
consequence is, that the rate of wages, even for such 
labour as can be obtained, is so high as to render 
it impossible for the West India planter to compete 
either with the slave or free produce of other coun- 
tries; and although, even under the recent altera- 
tion of the sugar duties, an amount of about a million 
and a quarter sterling will annually be paid as pro- 
tection on that article alone, we are told that, 
without larger sacrifices on the part of the mother 
country, it will be impossible for the proprietors to 

D 2 



36 

continue cultivation. At a public meeting at Anatto 
Bay, on the 19th of June last, resolutions were passed 
affirming that, under existing circumstances, "the 
colonies are doomed to ultimate ruin," and that the 
inhabitants (both white and coloured) " scarcely 
know whether to surrender themselves to despair, or 
to attempt to remonstrate with the Government." 
It is added also, that the approaching necessity for 
the abandonment of estates " will cut off all prospect 
of civilization for the children of Africa, and thus 
entail a curse more grievous and deplorable, if possi- 
ble, than the curse of slavery — the curse of savage 
existence and enduring barbarism." Again : " A pro- 
prietor," under date the 8th of July, alluding to the 
recent measures, writes from Grenada, " As things 
were, men fancied they might struggle on, in the 
hope that better times might come round; but now 
all hope is destroyed:" while from other quarters 
anticipations of the same gloomy nature have been 
forcibly proclaimed. It must be admitted as pro- 
bable, that these statements, although they coincide 
with the representations of the West India body in 
the House of Commons, greatly exaggerate the evils 
to be apprehended, and that the present amount of 
protection will prove sufficient to prevent an aban- 
donment of cultivation ; but they serve to confirm 
a very general impression, that no great reduction 
could take place without endangering this end, and 
that upon the continuance therefore of an enormous 
annual sacrifice the welfare of the negro depends. 



37 

" If, under the difficulties of the present crisis," says 
Mr. Gurncy in his " Winter in the West Indies," 
" the prohibitory duties on slave-grown coffee and 
sugar should be relaxed or extinguished, a market 
of immense magnitude Avould immediately be opened 
for the produce of the slave labour of the Brazils, 
Cuba, and Porto Rico. The consequence would be, 
that ruin would soon overtake the planters of our 
West Indian colonies, and our free negroes would be 
deprived of their principal means of obtaining an 
honourable and comfortable livelihood." 

Now when we consider that the cost of this pro- 
tection presses chiefly upon the poorer classes of 
England, it is impossible to avoid the apprehension 
that it may not always be patiently submitted to. 
At all events, little can be said for the wisdom or 
justice of a Government which has left the civi- 
lization of the coloured race to be dependent on 
the maintenance of an artificial price for one of the 
chief necessaries of life — an article equally in de- 
mand by the rich and the poor, and of which the 
free use is absolutely essential as a preventive of 
serious diseases. 

Symptoms of impatience have already been widely 
manifested. " The high price of colonial produce," 
writes Mr. Oldfield, " for the last few years, has 
created throughout the country a very general feeling 
against the prohibitory duties upon the sugar and 
coffee of Brazils and Cuba ;" and in one of the 
London journals the case has been strongly put. In 



38 

allusion to the rate of wages demanded in the West 
Indies, and to Mr. Gurney's description of the condi- 
tion of the labourers, it is remarked — " The truth is, 
the negroes are in the flourishing condition described 
by Mr. G-urney, because almost the whole of the 
price paid for sugar goes into their pockets. The 
people of England will not long endure this. When 
they hear of the luxurious negroes, they will say, 
' We paid twenty millions to make them free ; but 
we will not always submit to pay for the sugar they 
make, by working thirty hours a week, a price which 
enables them to enjoy the luxuries of the middle 
class at home, while our English labourers, by a 
week's work of more than twice as many hours, can 
barely earn a subsistence.' " 

That the moral and religious advancement of the 
negroes should comprise, in order to insure its per- 
manence, strict habits of frugality and industry, will 
scarcely be denied. It is impossible, however, to read 
of labour for thirty hours per week being " sufficient 
to provide comforts and luxuries to an extent not 
known by any peasantry in the world," without see- 
ing that a state of things exists to beget rather than 
to overcome a dislike to continued toil. When we 
meet, therefore, with descriptions of their hand- 
some wedding-dresses, the eggs consumed for their 
wedding cakes, the wine in their cottages, the mules 
and horses on which they come riding to their 
chapels, their champagne, and their pic-nic dinners, 
so far from being struck with gratifying evidence of a 



39 

growing civilization, we become impressed with the 
idea of a class of persons cruelly placed by defective 
legislation in a false position. It is no reproach to 
the negro that he does not work more continuously. 
In a country where twenty-six days' work during the 
year is sufficient to supply food for the labourer and 
his family, it would be difficult, even if he possessed 
the energy of a European, to prevent him from fall- 
ing into idleness, unless some motive could be awak- 
ened in addition to those which ordinarily operate. 
He has been placed in a position which even the 
British or Anglo-American labourer would be unable 
to resist, and which must inevitably unfit him to 
submit cheerfully to the low rate of remuneration 
which, under natural circumstances, is paid for un- 
skilled labour in every other part of the world; a 
rate to which he must nevertheless approach, or be 
abandoned to self-government, whenever his present 
artificial condition shall be disturbed. 

Although in the foregoing considerations we have 
looked only to the effects of emancipation on the 
moral condition of Jamaica, and some other islands 
where they present the most favourable aspect, we 
find them fraught with alarming probabilities. The 
worst anticipations may therefore be entertained for 
the fate of those communities where, owing to a 
higher rate of wages, the necessity for prolonged 
industry is less. From evidence collected by the 
Agricultural and Immigration Society of Trinidad 
three years after full emancipation, it appeared that 



40 

in that island an active labourer " could easily save 
six or seven dollars per week ;" but that, although it 
was possible even for women to perform three " tasks" 
a day with ease, " very few of the labourers performed 
two tasks, many only three or four in the week, and 
some not more than one;" that plunder of canes was 
carried on to a great extent, and could not be checked, 
because the planters were afraid the labourers in 
such case would leave their work and go elsewhere; 
that the greater number squandered their earnings 
in " drinking, gambling, and dissipation ;" that so far 
from employing their spare time in raising provisions 
and small stock, " produce of that kind had fallen 
off," owing to the carelessness caused by high wages ; 
and, finally, that the labour actually performed was 
" dirty and slovenly, and infinitely worse than it was 
in the time of slavery." It may be urged that some 
of this evidence came from questionable, because 
interested, sources; but it found confirmation from 
other quarters : and even if only partially correct, 
it must lead to conclusions of a very unfavourable 
kind. It was shown on the most reliable testimony 
that " drinking was becoming more prevalent even 
amongst the women," and that the habit threatened 
" in two or three years to demoralize the whole 
labouring population;" that the vice of gambling 
was increasing also every day ; that " instead of 
improvement in agriculture, everything had retro- 
graded ;" and that although no peasantry in the world 
were so well able to pay for the education of their 



41 

children, they showed " the greatest reluctance to 
incur the expense/ 1 

In the third case, then, as in the others, no due 
precautions were either adopted or suggested ; and it 
will therefore appear, that in all the points essential to 
the success of emancipation, the British measure was 
deficient, and that it must consequently be discarded 
from the consideration of those who desire to pro- 
mote in other countries the freedom of the coloured 
race. It is not unsatisfactory to arrive at this con- 
clusion, because, if the measure could be shown to 
have been sound, the fact of its not having been imi- 
tated by other nations would present a sadder 
augury than need now be entertained. 

Nor can those who refer to the opinions and motives 
avowed on this question in the British Parliament feel 
surprise at the failure of their counsels. At an early 
stage of the discussion, Lord Stanley took occasion 
explicitly to deprecate a consistent adherence to prin- 
ciple. Recognizing the experiment as one " more 
mighty, as well as more important and more interesting 
in its results, than any experiment ever attempted to 
be carried into effect by any nation in any period of 
the history of the world," his lordship deemed it im- 
possible to be carried through without sacrificing 
" some of those abstract principles — those wild, 
though benevolent theories," which are founded on 
the great rule of conscience, that you have no right 
to keep any man subject to any conditions except 
such as are imposed upon him by the laws of nature. 



42 

It was particularly sought to impress upon Parlia- 
ment at the outset that they were " dealing with 
realities, and not with abstract principles," although 
it was omitted to be shown what light other than 
that derived from abstract principles should guide 
them in dealing with anything. It was as if the 
Minister had said, " We are about to deliberate with 
a view to avert evils which we have drawn upon our 
heads by disobedience of primary laws; — we seek to 
proclaim to other nations that we now recognize those 
laws ; and this attempt, more important and interest- 
ing in its results than any other in the history of the 
world, requires for its practical and safe operation 
that on minor points those laws should be dis- 
obeyed. It is vain to allege that while the very 
foundation of our measure consists in the assertion of 
an abstract principle, it is inconsistent to urge a 
departure from abstract principles in carrying it out. 
Arguments of this nature are wild, inexpedient, and 
unstatesmanlike. The government of the world is so 
ordered, that while a departure from abstract princi- 
ples, on a great scale, inevitably brings the severest 
penalties, an infringement on minor points is often 
attended with the best results." The views on this 
head expressed by the proposer of the measure met 
with ready sympathy from those whom it was his 
business to conciliate ; the only difficulty being such 
as must inevitably arise in all similar cases, — namely, 
that although the various speakers uniformly recog- 
nized the propriety of an occasional departure from 



43 

principle, each of them seemed to differ as to the 
direction in which that departure should be per- 
mitted. 

It is not, indeed, clear that the Government acted 
distinctly, even at starting, upon any principle what- 
ever; for while, on the one hand, the Minister re- 
ferred to the measure as an act of " justice and hu- 
manity," which was imperatively called for, even 
though it would be attended with economical disas- 
ters, thereby recognizing those principles as his sole 
motive, he afterwards constantly alluded to it as a 
" great boon," and even boasted that " the Govern- 
ment had not called upon the negro to pay any part 
of the debt which he owed to the State for his free- 
dom." From this it is evident that while the Go- 
vernment at times recognized the inherent claim of the 
negro,* it was at other times felt that no such claim 
existed, and that emancipation therefore was a piece 
of liberality by no means absolutely called for. On 
the opposition side it was also evident that little ad- 
vance had been made towards a comprehension of the 
moral argument on which the claim for freedom solely 
rests. Sir Kobert Peel could not recognize it, but 
thought that liberty should be sold to the negroes, 
and wished Great Britain to take a lesson from 
Spain. " He did think it possible that by adopting, 
on a large scale, the principle of the Spanish law — 
by holding out to the slave, as a stimulus to labour, 
the prospect of emancipating himself gradually by the 
produce of it, by aiding that produce, when it 



44 

reached a certain amount, by a grant out of the 
public treasury, we should be promoting the most 
advantageous measure. If we had lain down the 
principle of aiding the slaves, by a grant a long way 
short of twenty millions, to purchase their freedom 
by their own labour, it would have been more for the 
interest of the slave than the course we were then 
pursuing." 

On the other hand, those who distinctly recognized 
the claim of the negro, and were, in this respect, able 
to comprehend and distinctly act upon a principle, 
showed that on other points they were not equally 
inflexible, and that while they clamoured for a strict 
adherence to the moral law in one direction, they 
were willing to sacrifice it in another. Thus, while 
the Government admitting the claim of the planter 
to full compensation, permitted themselves to de- 
part from principle by granting a lower amount 
than they had acknowledged to be due, the friends 
of the negro, contended that the planters were not 
entitled to any compensation, and that the payment 
of it was a fraud upon the people of England, voting 
for it at the same time in all its alleged injustice for 
the sake of getting freedom for the slave. On [ill 
sides the readiness to concede principle — to arrive, in 
fact, at a desired end by improper means — was une- 
quivocally manifested. 

That a measure entered into with such feelings 
should bring disappointment to its promoters, is con- 
solatory to the friends of truth; for, if it had yielded 



45 

any other result, it would have swept away the only 
doctrine by which they are sustained. So long as 
we can rely that the world is governed by con- 
sistent laws, and take our stand on the great prin- 
ciple, that no departure from them — however ex- 
pedient to a narrow vision it may appear — can bring 
in the end anything but disaster, we have a rule 
by which to regulate our course amidst every 
wavering influence around us; but, if in any case 
we admit that an abandonment of this principle 
is advisable, that truth is not coherent, and that 
a great good may sometimes be helped by a little 
wrong, we at once plunge into confusion; recognizing 
the future as depending upon our own dexterity, 
instead of upon immutable laws, operating solely 
according to our present obedience. If this were 
to be admitted, if the statesman's plea of the ne- 
cessity of unjust expedients — urged to cover his 
own personal incapacity to act without them — could 
be shown, even in one instance, to have been war- 
ranted by the result, the hopes of advancement, 
founded on the belief that mankind will at last learn 
the invariable connexion of disaster with injustice, 
would instantly be extinguished. The whole history 
of the world has hitherto tended to confirm these 
hopes; and it is because they would have been de- 
stroyed by a different result, that the failure of the 
British plan of emancipation may be regarded with 
satisfaction. 

It will, perhaps, be alleged, that in the fore- 



46 

going considerations too much importance has been 
attached to existing and coming evils, since, although 
they are of undoubted magnitude, they admit of an 
easy remedy; that this remedy has already been 
recognized, and put in train for adoption ; and that 
if it had been made part of the original plan, no 
difficulties would have arisen. 

Now, we are entitled to believe that there are few 
errors which, even in the darkest hour, may not 
be retrieved by those who sincerely set about the 
task; and I am therefore far from denying, in the 
present instance, that a remedy is to be found. But, 
inasmuch as the leading members of the British 
Senate, by whom the original measure was sanc- 
tioned, have not yet manifested a sense that its 
failure arose out of their departure from the straight 
path, it is to be feared that any remedy that may 
at present find favour in their eyes will hardly be 
such as to enable them to regain it. On the sur- 
face, therefore, there is nothing to inspire confidence; 
but it is, nevertheless, proper that we should pause, 
to enter into a short examination of the schemes 
proposed. 

The most unpromising feature of these schemes 
consists in their showing a total misconception of 
the cause of the evil which they are intended to 
cure. This evil, whatever it may be, cannot ori- 
ginate in the smallness of the population in the West 
Indies, because the distress now complained of has 
arisen solely from emancipation; and emancipation, 



47 

while it has not reduced the number of coloured 
inhabitants, has actually doubled their working- 
capacity, owing to the fact — that the labour of a 
free man, when it is fairly brought out, is twice as 
productive as that of the slave. It is evident, there- 
fore, that the evil has nothing to do with a scarcity 
of hands, but that it must be looked for in the de- 
fective legislation, which permits existing energies to 
lie dormant. 

" The result of our own enquiries," writes Mr. 
Gurney, in 1840, " is a conviction that the present 
population of Jamaica, if its force be but fairly ap- 
plied under a just and wise management, will be 
found more than adequate to its present extent of 
cultivation." The schemes, however, to which the 
British Government have directed their attention, 
seem based on the idea that the existing distress 
arises from the want of a sufficient number of labour- 
ers, instead of from the absence of a salutary arrange- 
ment by which those already in the colonies might 
be rendered effective; that the problem, in fact, of 
the superiority of free over slave labour is to be 
solved by employing an extra number of hands to do 
the old amount of work, and it is consequently their 
policy to encourage immigration, even at an enormous 
outlay. Whatever doubts may attach to this course, 
as to its effecting the desired end, there might be no 
objection to the attempt, provided it could be con- 
ducted on principles of justice : a short examination, 
however, will show that there is little prospect of 



48 

immediate success ; and that even if success is tempo- 
rarily achieved, it will be by measures so com- 
pletely objectionable as to lead inevitably to ultimate 
disaster. 

The sources whence immigration is looked for are 
Western Africa and the East Indies. Regarding the 
first, it has been made evident that if effected to any 
extent it must be by means little different from those 
of the slave-trade. Materials for voluntary immigra- 
tion scarcely exist. The most eligible would be found 
amongst the Kroomen; and of the chances of success 
in this quarter, by any honest means, an idea may be 
gathered from the Report on West Africa, by a Com- 
mittee of the House of Commons in 1842. "As we 
proceed up the coast, we fall in, between Cape Pal- 
mas and Cape Mount, with a very singular race of 
men consisting of many small tribes, known com- 
monly by the collective name of Kroomen, scattered 
along a considerable range of shore ; much given, 
though not exclusively, to maritime pursuits ; forming 
part of the crew of every English man-of-war and 
merchantman on the coast; known by a distinctive 
external mark, and neither taken as slaves themselves 
nor making slaves of others. Their numbers are un- 
certain, but are undoubtedly considerable, and seem 
to be increasing ; and their confidence in the English 
character is ascertained. But it seems doubtful whe- 
ther permission for large numbers to leave their 
shores could be obtained without some present to 
their chiefs; and their attachment to their own 



49 

country, and their present habits of migrating, only 
for a period and without their families, make it also 
doubtful whether they would ever become permanent 
settlers elsewhere, or indeed remain away from home 
for a longer period than two or three years." The 
total immigration from Sierra Leone is stated to 
amount, up to the latest returns, to about 3,297. 
" To convey these in small detachments, scattered 
over a space of three years, three first-rate ships 
have been employed, each having on board a navy 
lieutenant and surgeon with large salaries." * It 
must be admitted as probable that private vessels 
would be more successful than government ships have 
been; but this would arise from the circumstance that 
private and interested agents would be infinitely less 
scrupulous as to the means by which immigrants might 
be obtained. 

So well is it understood that voluntary immigra- 
tion is not to be managed to any considerable extent 
that, in 1842, the Agricultural and Immigration 
Society of Trinidad boldly recommended that the 
British Government should enter into competition 
with the slave-buyers on the coast of Africa, and 
purchase the captive negroes upon condition of their 
becoming immigrants. " The Committee, therefore," 
these are their words, " after seriously considering 
the whole subject, both in its causes and consequences, 
presume to advise, that if a sufficient number of free 
labourers are not be found on the coast of Africa 

* Spectator, \o June, 184-4. 

E 



50 

disposed to emigrate to our colonies, some of the 
unhappy persons who are held there in bondage 
should be purchased and manumitted for that 
purpose." 

The great plea for resorting to strong measures to 
induce immigration consists in the advantages that 
would accrue to the African on being transported to 
the British colonies — a fact which is dwelt upon by 
the Committee of the House of Commons with great 
earnestness. The same plea, however, to a less extent, 
might have been urged to justify slavery. The 
question for our consideration is not if the African 
can be benefited by immigration; but whether, sup- 
posing such to be the case, the benefit can be con- 
ferred upon him by honest means. The attachment 
of the negro to his country is well known to be 
amongst the strongest feelings of his sluggish nature ; 
and it is no more possible to tempt him to leave it by 
holding out those advantages of civilization which 
white men consider inducements, than it would have 
been possible to tempt a Sioux or a Fox to abandon 
his hunting grounds to partake of the refinements of 
New York. No doubt we might purchase immigrants 
upon the plan proposed by the Trinidad Society, to 
the ultimate advantage of the parties thus acquired; 
and supposing it to be impossible to set them free in 
their own land, and at the. same time not culpable to 
become a party — even from good motives — to a trade 
in human flesh, and also that it was quite certain that 
for every "unhappy person" so removed some new 



51 

victim would not be required to fill the gap, the 
scheme of the Society might perhaps be listened to. 

Regarding the second quarter whence immigration 
is looked for, some striking facts are already before 
the world. From 1834 to 1838 no fewer than 
20,000 Hill Coolies were exported from British India 
to the Island of Mauritius, with such success, as far as 
the interests of the planters were concerned in in- 
creasing cultivation, as to awaken a strong desire in 
the West India colonies for a similar advantage ; and 
in July, 1837, an Order in Council was issued by the 
Government, allowing the importation of Hill Coolies 
into British Guiana under contracts for a period of 
five years. Four hundred were accordingly intro- 
duced, and a much larger number would have fol- 
lowed, but for a timely exposure of the practices by 
which these immigrations had been promoted, which 
caused the authorities to issue a prohibition. From 
what is understood, however, of the views of the Bri- 
tish Government at the present time, it is believed 
that under certain restrictions the traffic will be 
largely renewed.* 

* The Times of the 21st of August last gave insertion to the fol- 
lowing : — " Hill Coolies. — A correspondent informs us that the 
10,000 Coolies which Government has allowed to be transported 
from Calcutta and Madras, are to be sent one half to Demerara, 
and the remaining 5,000 in equal proportions to Jamaica and 
Trinidad ; these three colonies having given the requisite securities 
in regard to them. They are to leave the East Indies some time 
between the months of October and March. Each ship in which 
they are conveyed must carry a surgeon, and the number of Coolies 

e 2 



52 

The first immigrations to Mauritius were charac- 
terized by singular atrocities. In a Despatch to Lord 
Glenelg, dated the 21st of May, 1839, Sir W. Nico- 
lay says, " That very nefarious practices have been 
resorted to in many instances in order to procure 
labourers for embarkation, is beyond all doubt ;" and 
Mr. Anderson, a member of the Committee of Inquiry 
on Indian Labourers, alleges, that " many of them 
have been actually kidnapped from their own country, 
which they have all been induced to leave under cir- 
cumstances of gross fraud." 

It is stated, that out of 1 9,050 Coolies introduced, 
only 205 were women. Despite the most vigilant 
watch on board the ships in which they were trans- 
ported, many suicides were committed. On board 
one ship, the " Lancier," there appears to have been 
five, and in another, the " Indian Oak," twelve 
attempts took place, of which three were successful. 
The general mortality appears to have been excessive 
both during the voyage and after their arrival. In 
British Guiana, also, a dreadful loss of life is stated 
to have occurred. 

in each is to be regulated in terms of the Passengers' Act. It is 
expected that the cost of transporting them to the West Indies will 
be about 12/. per head. The transport of these, it is thought, 
will require from 50 to 60 vessels of 400 tons each. It is under- 
stood that Government mean to apply to Parliament early next 
session for an act to permit the introduction of any number of 
Coolies to the West Indies." — Greenock Advertiser. 

The last papers received from the West Indies announce that the 
Demerara legislature have voted, in accordance with the terms of a 
Despatch from Lord Stanley, 75,000/. for the encouragement of 
Hill Coolie emigration. 



53 

The treatment of the labourers by their new 
masters seems to have been characterized in many- 
instances by the grossest personal violence and in- 
justice ; a fact which can hardly cause surprise, when 
the treatment previously endured by the negroes from 
the same hands is called to mind, together with 
the circumstance that after the slave-trade was abo- 
lished, the Act of Parliament regarding it was 
admitted by a Secretary of State to have been 
violated to no less an extent than 25,000 times by 
the people of Mauritius.* The fate of an ignorant 

* It is difficult to obtain information on which reliance can be 
placed regarding transactions in Mauritius; but the following para- 
graph in the Times of the 15th of July last tends to confirm existing 
suspicions, and to show that, after all that has passed, little sense 
of the duties of humanity has been awakened in that island : — 

" The Indian papers brought by the last overland mail record a 
shocking instance of mortality in a ' Coolie ship,' employed to 
bring back from Mauritius a number of Coolies whose time had 
expired. When she left Calcutta to go to the Mauritius with 
210 Coolies (the full number permitted), she only lost three of 
them, including a woman, who died in child-birth. When she 
returned, she brought 270 Coolies — nearly a third more than her 
permitted number — and of these she lost seventeen. To the fact 
that so much more than the proper number was carried, do the local 
writers, who take the humane view of the question, attribute the 
increase of mortality, and the melancholy event gives them an oppor- 
tunity of contrasting the conduct of the public authorities at the Mau- 
ritius with that of the authorities of Calcutta. At Calcutta, as we 
have seen, no more than the right number could be shipped, and 
there are at the same place a variety of regulations concerning the 
supply of provisions for the voyage. At the Mauritius, on the con- 
trary, no such regulations seem to exist, or if they do exist, they are 
completely inoperative ; and the assertion is well borne out, that after 
the engagement of the Coolies has expired, all concern for their 



54 

Hindoo entrapped into such a community, unac- 
quainted with their language, without money, and 
unable to return to his own country for five years, 
(save at an expense, under the most fortunate cir- 
cumstances, of forty rupees,) can hardly he the sub- 
ject of favourable anticipations ; and when it is taken 
into consideration that under the circumstances into 
which the immigrant is thrown, the sanctity of his pe- 
culiar religious views is unavoidably broken through, 
while at the same time the presence and exertions 
of Christian Missionaries are understood to have been 
discouraged as tending to render him restless and dis- 
satisfied, it will not be matter of wonder that in one 
of the despatches from Sir Lionel Smith, the Gover- 
nor, it is stated, that " the Coolies already introduced 
had given themselves up to a degree of disgraceful 
licentiousness which no person acquainted with their 
character and habits in India (dissolute as they are 
known to be) could possibly believe." * 

welfare ceases. There appears to be no necessity for providing 
medicine or medical attendance, and all that the captain is bound 
to furnish is a pound and a half of rice daily, two pounds of salt 
fish per week (which is found positively injurious), and some salt 
and wood, with accommodations for cooking. No regard is paid to 
the number of Coolies put on board, and the owners may cram 
their vessels as much as they think fit. Thus, while every pre- 
caution is taken on the voyage from India to the Mauritius 
through the humane exertions of the Bengal authorities, the very 
reverse is the case on the voyage back. The Government of India 
is totally powerless in this matter, and the local writers urgently 
call for the interference of the home Government. In two ships, it 
seems, no less than sixty- one persons have perished. 

* It is curious that, in the face of this, Sir Lionel Smith has no 



55 

The extent of the frauds by which these immi- 
grations were effected can hardly be conceived; yet 
it is quite evident that so long as immigration con- 
tinues it can only be by similar means. In support 
of the assertion that " in the absence of fraud no 
labourer from among the Coolie race could be induced 
to leave his country," a significant fact was mentioned 
a year or two back in the House of Commons. It 
was stated that a Mr. Dowson, who had himself 
been engaged in exporting Indian labourers to the 
Mauritius, became so convinced of the fraudulent 
system by which the Coolies were entrapped, that 
he determined not to employ the crimps and duffa- 
dars to procure them, but to send a special agent. 
" My orders," he said, " were to engage no Coolie 
without first explaining to him the nature of the 
employment, and that he was to leave his country 
for a period of five years." It proved a fruitless 
mission, for he did not succeed in procuring a single 
Coolie, and that at the very time that duffadars sent 
by another party were engaging Coolies by hundreds 
in the immediate vicinity. On the possibility of 

hesitation in asserting that " although he will not promise that no 
injustice or oppression shall be practised towards those who may 
hereafter emigrate, they will be infinitely better off than in their 
own overstocked country, and that their mercenary habits will be 
gratified to the ultimate advantage of India and Mauritius." The 
bettering process appears from this view to consist in drawing a 
man from his home, family, and friends, in order to gratify his 
" mercenary habits," — even though such gratification may lead to 
a " disgraceful licentiousness" previously unknown. 



56 

arranging a system by which fraud might be pre- 
vented, Lord Auckland, as Governor- General of 
India, gave his opinion : — " I greatly fear that though 
amendment and caution would no doubt come with 
time, no strictness of regulation, no vigilance on 
the part of the authorities, would immediately pre- 
vent the frequent infliction of grievous oppressions 
and deceits upon large numbers of persons, helpless 
from their poverty and from their utter ignorance 
and inexperience." 

It is impossible to convey to the ignorant Coolie 
any idea of the nature of the engagement into which 
he enters when he consents to emigrate. He knows 
nothing of geography, nothing of the sea, nothing 
of the effects of separation from home ; and although 
these things may be represented to him in clue form, 
the representation will make little impression, espe- 
cially while it is sedulously coupled with appeals to 
those " mercenary habits" which form the worst 
and most active feature of his character, and which 
it is the duty of his fellow men to endeavour to 
repress. If it can be shown that the Coolie, when 
his ignorance is removed, is willing to serve in a 
foreign country, and to undertake an agreement after 
experience has rendered him competent to do so, 
there can be no objection to permission being granted ; 
but there is but one way in which this experience 
can be conveyed to him. If he really understands 
the nature of a sea voyage and foreign labour at 
the time of consenting to emigrate, he will of course 



57 

not wish to withdraw that consent when lie finds that 
his views are confirmed. It would be very safe, 
therefore, for the Government, if they felt sure that 
he had not been imposed upon, to adopt any method 
by which this fact might be tested and the doubts of 
their opponents effectually removed. They might, for 
instance, instruct the commander of each immigrant 
ship, after having been two days at sea, to call all the 
passengers before him, to acquaint them that the 
passage, of which they had now had forty-eight hours' 
experience, would last for many weeks, and that they 
had then the option of continuing or returning. If 
no deceit had been practised, they would of course 
proceed; and thus, as far as the sea voyage was 
concerned, it would be evident they acted of their 
own free will. Again, as it might still happen that 
they had been grossly deceived regarding the nature 
of their destination and the work required of them, 
they might have an opportunity, say for three 
months after their arrival, of testing the lure which 
had been held out to them, and then of returning if 
they found that they had been misled. So far, how- 
ever, are those who tempt the Coolie by the " infinite 
advantages " of emigration from being disposed to rely 
upon his satisfaction at these advantages when he 
comes to have experience of them, that a method the 
very opposite of this is considered necessary. Once 
on board ship, and bound for the West Indies, he has 
no opportunity of escape for five years ; unless, indeed, 
at the end of a less time he may have succeeded in 






58 

accumulating 12/. sterling, and should be willing to 
sacrifice it to purchase his deliverance. 

In a measure of emancipation, then, the defects 
of which has led to the adoption of remedies such as 
these, we can find nothing but what is to be shunned ; 
and even if the method above stated were adopted 
so as to prevent the Coolie immigration from being 
what it now is — a new form of slavery, although one 
gross feature of injustice would be removed, the dis- 
astrous clumsiness of the whole would still stand 
forth. When we see the planters openly denied the 
full compensation admitted to be their due, the produce 
of the colonies reduced nearly one half, the coloured 
race perilled by habits of luxurious indolence, the 
slave-trade stimulated, and the prejudices of slave- 
holding countries confirmed, we almost come to the 
conclusion that further mischief is impossible; but 
when we are told that, in consequence of these things, 
a permanent protection is to be granted to the planters 
out of the pockets of the poor of England — that an 
immigration is to take place of thousands of labourers 
(to restore the country under freedom to its pros- 
perity under slavery), at an expense for each, for five 
years only, of 24/. sterling — and that an influx is to 
be permitted amongst the coloured population of a 
new race, notoriously " dissolute," and prone to " dis- 
graceful licentiousness," we learn that the evil may 
yet by one means be increased, and that this means 
is to be found in the adoption of " remedies" suggested 
by those who continue the disregard of principle in 
which alone it had its origin. 



5<J 

In closing this section, it is necessary to touch 
upon an experiment in connexion with the slave 
question, which has been widely promoted for nearly 
thirty years, — that of the American Colonization So- 
ciety, for shipping off to their settlement of Liberia 
the free people of colour residing in the United 
States. Whether this scheme, however, has any bear- 
ing on emancipation so as to bring it strictly within 
the scope of our inquiries, it is somewhat difficult to 
ascertain ; its promoters having occasionally described 
it as comprehending " the only possible mode of 
emancipation, at once safe and rational, that human 
ingenuity can devise," and at other times, as " dis- 
claiming all intention whatever of interfering in the 
smallest degree with the rights of property or the ob- 
ject of emancipation, gradual or immediate." 

The total receipts of this society are alleged to 
have amounted to 300,000 or 400,000 dollars ; and 
I find, by a recent New York journal, that "the 
colony of Liberia now numbers 2,463 persons, of 
whom 645 were born in Africa." From this state- 
ment, taking into consideration that there are 
386,348 free negroes in the United States, and 
2,487,355 slaves, and that the turn of the slaves 
for removal is not likely to come till the free blacks 
are got rid of, the Society certainly does not seem to 
call for notice as an instrument of emancipation. 

The practices by which even the above limited 
results have been obtained are such also as to con- 
firm this conclusion. " If the free people of colour," 



60 

said the Southern Religious Telegraph of the 19th 
of February, 1831, " were generally taught to read, 
it might be an inducement for them to remain in 
this country; we would offer them no such induce- 
ment." A scheme Avhich involves the keeping of 
nearly 400,000 persons in total ignorance, with the 
view to bring about a state of misery and degrada- 
tion that may drive them in desperation from their 
homes, and which is persisted in, though the emi- 
gration of less than one per cent, of the popula- 
tion thus debased has been its sole encouragement 
during thirty years, can hardly be shaken in the 
minds of its supporters by any appeal to reason 
or morality. They must have reached that last 
stage of infatuation, to which disaster, and not 
warning, must supply the cure.* 

Dismissing, however, all consideration of the failure 

* " It appears questionable whether Liberia will ever raise food 
sufficient for a very moderate population; and it certainly never 
can export any quantity of tropical produce. During the time 
we remained in the river St. Paul, our vessels were crowded by 
respectable and intelligent mulattoes, all of whom, with the excep- 
tion of the coloured editor of the Liberia Gazette, and one or two 
others in the pay of the Society by whom they are sent from 
America, complained bitterly of the deceit that had been practised 
towards them, and of the privations under which they were then 
Buffering. An intelligent mulatto said to me, on my questioning 
him on the subject, ' It was not exactly kidnapping, but we were 
inveigled away under false pretences.' 

" As to civilizing Africa by means of Liberia, it is well known, 
that from the time the colony was first established it was constantly 
at war with the natives until their partial extermination left the 
strangers in peaceable possession." — Laird's Expedition. 



6i 

of this Society, it seems inexplicable that at its first 
formation any one should have been found to regard 
it in the slightest degree as an aid to emancipa- 
tion. The getting rid of the free blacks would 
render slavery more safe, and slaves more valuable; 
and that men who now refuse to recognize the sin- 
fulness of the institution would, under such circum- 
stances of increased temptation, manifest a better 
disposition, is hardly to be expected. " Without 
slaves the plantations would be worthless, — there 
are no white men to cultivate them," is one ground 
of protest against the views of the abolitionists; the 
destruction of the rights of property and the ruin 
of the proprietors, if freedom were granted without 
compensation, being another; both of which must 
be admitted valueless, if the scheme of the planters, 
voluntarily, and at a great expense, to ship away 
these cultivators and their own " right of property" 
at the same time, is to be received in good faith. 
The present value of the slave population is some- 
times estimated at two or three hundred millions 
sterling; and the supposition that there is an in- 
tention of sacrificing this amount, either at the 
shrine of prejudice or principle, is not warranted 
by any self-denying horror of slavery or of the co- 
loured race hitherto manifested by the Southern 
States. 

But it will be urged that those who advocated the 
Liberia scheme as an instrument of emancipation, did 
so with the understanding that its effects would be 



62 

gradual, and that it would take "at least" a hundred 
years to accomplish its object. Such was certainly 
the case, and this gives us an additional reason for 
dismissing it from our consideration. The scheme of 
sinners to insure that the advantages of sin shall be 
enjoyed by themselves and denied to those who may 
come after them, cannot present much that is in- 
structive. When the present race are called to 
their account, we may believe their best plea will 
be found in having sought virtue while it was yet 
permitted them, and not in having directed their 
efforts to an end, which has already been made known 
to us as fore-ordained of Heaven, that their sins shall 
be repented of by a third and fourth generation. 

Having arrived at the conclusion that in seeking 
the repression of slavery we can derive no help from 
precedent, we must now enter upon the question with 
minds as free as if it had never been the subject of 
legislation. In taking this step our only course is to 
recognize boldly the duties it involves — duties which 
were sought to be defined in the first section of these 
remarks — and to see if, by strictly attempting to 
fulfil them, we cannot render our task more easy than 
if we were to adopt the politician's plan, and to con- 
tent ourselves with expedients by which they might 
be evaded. 



63 



SECTION III. 

OF THE MEANS BY WHICH EMANCIPATION SHOULD BE 
EFFECTED. 

In looking at the points for which, in abolishing 
slavery, it is essential to provide, viz. the compensa- 
tion of the planter — the permanent productiveness of 
the State — and the welfare of the coloured race, we 
observe the simple fact that the accomplishment of the 
whole woidd at once be within our power, if we could 
fasten upon some method by which the industry of 
the negro in a state of freedom could be prevented 
from falling below what he yields in slavery, at the 
same time that the rate of remuneration should be 
such as is paid under natural circumstances for labour 
of an analogous kind in other parts of the world. If 
this object could be attained, the source whence the 
means of compensation to the planter for the loss of 
his exclusive title to the labour of the slave is to be 
derived would immediately become apparent; and the 
mere practical arrangement by which such compen- 
sation should be conveyed to him would alone remain 
to be considered, because, as no diminution of labour 
woidcl take place, it would be impossible for the slave- 
owner to be deprived of any portion of it without some 
one else reaping the advantage, and there would, there- 
fore, be nothing to do but to adjust the balance between 



64 

them ; so that the loss sustained by one party from 
the labour-market being thrown open, might be made 
up by the other, who had taken the opportunity to 
come into it. The substitution of wages for the pre- 
sent cost of supporting the slave, supposing them to 
be at the same rate as is usually given for unskilled 
labour, would not act as a disturbing cause, since the 
slave never performs above half the work of a free 
man ; and for this occupation a rate of wages that would 
supply him with all he now gets, viz., food, clothing, 
lodging, medical attendance, maintenance in old age, 
&c, would be more than equal to what is usually at- 
tained in free communities ; few instances being known 
of a peasantry who, simply by working each other 
day, are able to insure these necessaries. * 

Our chief object, then, must be to ascertain if there 
is any mode consistent with justice by which the na- 
tural powers of the negro may thus be developed so 
as to induce on his part an obedience to the great 
condition of all human progress — that each man shall 
exert such faculties as may have been bestowed upon 
him to the fullest extent that is consistent with the 
happiness of others. 

It will hardly be contended that the faculties of the 
negro in his present stage can be beneficially deve- 

* " In the laborious occupation of holing, the emancipated negroes 
perform double the work of a slave in a day. In road-making the 
day's task, under slavery, was to break four barrels of stone. Now, 
by task-work, a weak hand will fill eight barrels, a strong one from 
ten to twelve barrels." — Gurney. 



65 

loped in any other way than by the rudest occupa- 
tions of agriculture or art, and it is therefore by con- 
stant diligence in this direction that he best fulfils 
the duties of his being. It is true he is capable of 
warm domestic feelings; but the proper action of 
these, so far from being inconsistent with healthy in- 
dustry, would render it light and cheerful. Now the 
exercise of these powers of usefulness which lie pos- 
sesses can only be drawn from him as it is drawn 
from others, by acting in some way upon his predo- 
minant desires. In a high state of civilization all 
the faculties of the mind are more or less in exercise, 
and everything in nature, therefore, stirs us to acti- 
vity ; but in a lower stage the lower faculties are alone 
powerful, and the means of suggesting motives to ex- 
ertion are consequently very limited. That they are 
not so limited, however, in the present instance as to 
be inadequate to the desired end, we have sufficient 
reason to believe; because we have seen that even 
the slave-trader and slave-owner, acting in all the 
ignorance of selfish depravity, have been able in 
their blind way to achieve the object of compelling 
the negro to work; and it would be monstrous to 
suppose that a success which has been attained by 
such minds is beyond the reach of that wisdom which 
seeks its ends only by virtuous means ; that the 
short-sighted cunning, in fact, of predominant pro- 
pensities can grasp even temporarily what the harmo- 
nious action of reason and morality would attempt in 
vain. 

F 



66 

In considering the negro in his present stage of 
mental development, we perceive manifestations of 
strong sensual appetites, intense domestic attachments, 
cautiousness, love of money, vanity, and a disposition 
to reverence. These then are the chief materials pre- 
sented for us to work upon in endeavouring to lead 
him to useful ends ; the remaining mental faculties 
being rarely, either singly or combined, so eager for 
gratification as to impel him to attain it by self-denial 
in other respects. But while we see that the gratifi- 
cation of the lower faculties which I have named 
would present the only inducement that would stimu- 
late him to exertion, we are required to bear in mind, 
that as they are already predominant, his advance- 
ment can only be aided by calling into play those 
which are at present inactive; so as to bring the 
various powers of the mind to that harmonious and 
active state to which they approach among more civi- 
lized races. This being the case, it must be improper 
to hold out as a bait any additional gratification of 
the inferior faculties, and hence a difficulty arises; 
since, if we are forbidden to stimulate the only desires 
which are strong enough to act as inducements, it is 
not at first sight easy to discover by what means we 
are to operate upon him at all. "It maybe very 
well," it will be said, " to appeal to intellect, benevo- 
lence, conscience, taste, and all the finer powers, and 
to show how he might gratify them by the produce of 
his labour; but until by long training these powers 
have been rendered active, we shall only appeal to 



67 

them in vain. There is no present chance, then, of 
arousing him by this means ; and yet we are told that 
the remaining faculties are to be repressed rather 
than excited. "What in such case is to be done ? 
If we could hold out to him as the reward of labour 
some new indulgences of his sensual desires, some 
enormous increase of wages, or some undue gratifica- 
tion of vanity, — or eveii if we might stimulate his 
already over- developed sense of fear by a recourse to 
personal inflictions, it is easy to see that more work 
might be obtained; but while these stimulants are 
denied, and it is admitted that there are no others 
that would prove effectual, it seems hard to compre- 
hend that any means exist by which our object may 
be effected." 

But the difficulty, though great, is not insurmount- 
able. Although his predominant propensities already 
find sufficient gratification, and must not be further 
encouraged, it remains for us to inquire if there is 
not some portion of this gratification the just enjoy- 
ment of which is inconsistent with a neglect of in- 
dustry, and if so, whether it is not possible as a con- 
sequence of such neglect to enforce a deprivation of 
what is now permitted to him ? 

There can be no doubt that if we were to deny 
him the enjoyment of eating or drinking until he 
consented to work, or if we were to separate him 
from his wife and children, permitting him to join 
them only on the same conditions, or if Ave could 
induce all his fellows to regard idleness as a disgrace, 

v 2 



Cd8 

and to refuse to associate with him until he became 
industrious, we should accomplish our end ; but none 
of these means are open to us, since the former would 
be an outrage on his liberty, and the latter is an 
impossibility. By taking food, and by enjoying the 
society of his wife and children, he merely gratifies 
natural faculties without in any way interfering with 
the happiness of others. 

One of the strongest propensities of his nature, 
however, and intimately connected with his other 
domestic impulses, is his attachment to home or 
country. This feeling, innate in all men, has 
long been observed to display itself with singular 
force in the character of the negro. Amongst all 
races there exists to a greater or less degree a blind 
attachment to the place they have long inhabited, 
apart from the mere effect of association, which can 
never be entirely overcome, and which has evidently 
been implanted by the Creator for the wisest pur- 
poses. To man, in a rude stage of society, it seems 
especially essential, since as the first step towards 
founding communities, or the pursuit of agriculture, 
it is necessary for him to adopt a permanent loca- 
tion; a necessity to which he is adapted, and the 
fulfilment of which is rendered agreeable to him by 
the existence of this faculty. In many of the lower 
animals the same propensity is to be remarked, " Mi- 
gratory animals," it has been observed, " return 
thousands of miles to reach the same spot that they 
inhabited the year before. In doing this, they have 



69 

no apparent motive but attachment to the place. It 
cannot be to find food, for they often pass other lo- 
cations which are superior in this respect to their 
own homes; nor can it be attachment to their former 
companions, for they go with them and return with 
them. In many instances they not only return to 
the same country, but to the same tree or bank, or 
house, and even to the same nest. The propensity 
seems also powerfully developed in the cat, who will 
leave all her old friends, and taking her kittens in 
her mouth, return several miles to her accustomed 
residence." That this propensity exists in man, as 
well as in the lower animals, irrespective of the ef- 
fects of reason or association, is shown by the fact 
that it is usually strongest in the least cultivated 
minds, while if it Avere a consequence of the in- 
creased powers of association which high training 
brings, it would of course be found to increase in 
force with the progress of civilization. So far from 
this being the case, we have evidence of the feeling 
being manifested in the most intense form by the 
most barbarous races; cases of death from nostalgia, 
the peculiar disease caused by its morbid action, 
having been reported even amongst the aborigines 
of Van Dieman's Land. It is from its activity, too, 
that much of the repugnance to emigration amongst 
the lower classes of society which is shown under the 
severest pressure, and where the opportunity is af- 
forded them of taking their entire families, and of 
accompanying their friends, is to be accounted for; 






70 

whilst we may also attribute to it, in some degree, 
the salutary effect which the dread of perpetual ba- 
nishment is found to produce on the most depraved. 

But whether it be regarded as arising from a 
primary faculty of the mind, or merely as the result 
of association, the fact is unquestionable, that the 
emotion itself is common to human nature, and, 
especially, that it exercises an imperative sway over 
the negro race. 

In the evidence given before a Committee of the 
British Parliament, it was shown that the slaves in 
the West Indies had a great objection to being re- 
moved even from one estate to another in the same 
island. Indeed, it was stated by one or two witnesses 
that when it was proposed to remove them from an 
unhealthy situation to a better one they declined the 
offer. In Jamaica, after emancipation, the planters, 
knowing the strength of this feeling, resorted to 
threats of ejectment to compel labour ; and so tena- 
cious were the negroes of their immediate homesteads, 
that cottages have been unroofed, and even demo- 
lished, cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees have been 
cut down, and provision grounds despoiled, before 
they could be driven to move away to other pro- 
perties. In some instances, the plan of doubling 
or trebling the rent, or even multiplying it fourfold, 
or charging it per capita against husband, wife, and 
each of the children, seems to have failed to drive 
them away. In an instance of the removal of slaves 
from the Bahamas to Trinidad, they are stated all to 



have " pined away ;" and Sir Fowell Buxton, in 
contending against permission being given to remove 
the coloured apprentices from one colony to another, 
alluded in the House of Commons to similar cases. 
" The late Mr. Maryat," he said, " stated in this 
house, in my hearing, that the negroes died off when 
they came to Trinidad like 'rotten sheep.' Sir 
John Cotton hesitated not to say that it would have 
been less cruel to have shot them through the head 
than to have so transported them. A case was tried 
in this country respecting a claim for some slaves 
removed from Tobago to Trinidad. The person who 
received them refused to pay the demand made upon 
him ; and he distinctly proved that the whole body 
of negroes — men, women, and children — died within 
two years after they arrived at Trinidad. My firm 
conviction is, that if you were to permit their re- 
moval, more than twenty thousand would be removed 
in the course of seven or eight years from island 
to island, and that not one in twenty would be alive 
at the end of their apprenticeship. In the case 
of the removal of some slaves from Tobago to Tri- 
nidad, we were told that the negroes were most 
anxious to be removed ; the next thing we heard 
of was an insurrection; and the last account was, 
that they were taken, put in irons, and re-transported 
from Trinidad to Tobago." Sir Fowell Buxton also 
quotes Mr. Young as an authority on negro cha- 
racter, who says that they are as much attached to 
the estate on which they have lived for years as 



72 

the peasantry are described to be in the " Deserted 
Village." " Of all beings in the world," said Mr. 
P. M. Stewart, an advocate of the West India in- 
terests, " those most attached to localities are the 
negroes." 

In the state of Virginia, when the original bill for 
an appropriation to the Colonization Society was 
under discussion, a Mr. Brodnax is reported to have 
observed, in relation to a clause for the compulsory 
transportation of free blacks, "It is my opinion that 
few, very few, will voluntarily consent to emigrate, 
if no compulsory measures be adopted. Without it, 
you will still, no doubt, have applicants for removal 
— people who will not only consent, but beg you to 
deport them. But what sort of consent? — a consent 
extorted by a species of oppression, calculated to 
render their situation among us insupportable ! " To 
which another member, Mr. Fisher, added, "If we 
wait till the free negroes consent to leave the State, 
we shall wait till time is no more. They never will 
give their consent." 

The best informed writers also allude to the same 
peculiarity. Mr. Gurney speaks of them as "fondly 
attached to their humble homes," and alludes to the 
strength with which this feeling sways them, (whether 
they be "educated or uneducated,") to account for 
the fact that, in the island of Dominica they prefer 
remaining to labour in the old districts, instead of 
giving way to the temptation of squatting in idleness 
on the wild lands. Describing the Antilles, and the 



73 

constant convulsions by which they are devastated, it 
is remarked by Mr. Breen, in his work just published 
on St. Lucia, " The fact is, between fires and hurri- 
canes and earthquakes, the bewildered inhabitant of 
these islands scarcely knows where to go or what to 
do ; and yet with all their disadvantages and dangers, 
he still fondly clings to the wild western rocks of his 
birth." Mr. Featherstonhaugh relates that Mr. Madi- 
son, the Ex-president, once informed him that he had 
assembled all his slaves, — and they were numerous, — 
and offered to manumit them immediately, but that 
they instantly declined it, alleging, amongst other 
reasons, that they had been born on his estate, and 
that if they were made free they would have no home 
to go to. Mr. Burnley, of Trinidad, by whom more 
than ordinary opportunities were possessed of observ- 
ing the negro character, says, "The African is found 
to be naturally attached to the spot which he inha- 
bits. Even the peon who migrates annually from the 
adjoining continent to labour in Trinidad, regularly 
returns when the crop is over to his accustomed 
home." This kind of attachment is no less observ- 
able even in the midst of his original barbarism. 
" The great object of the krooman, or the ashman 
(the most prone to emigration of all the negro race) 
is to get," says Mr. Laird, " the means of purchasing 
as many wives as will keep him in idleness in his own 
country." 

Now the gratification of this propensity — this love 
of home — involves, as does also the gratification of 



74 

every other desire, a necessity for the fulfilment of 
certain coincident duties. The indulgence, for in- 
stance, of the affection which leads to the union of the 
sexes, imposes the responsibility of faithfully main- 
taining the partner selected; and if this is not ful- 
filled, steps are taken to enforce it. The enjoyment 
of parental love in like manner brings with it the 
obligation to attend to the physical and moral im- 
provement of the offspring, and when such obliga- 
tion is neglected, it becomes proper for the State to 
fulfil the task, and to deny the offenders the presence 
of their children. The same may be said of all 
human feelings ; they have all their legitimate sphere 
of action, as also their inseparable duties. The love 
of home forms no exception to this rule. The soil 
to which we attach ourselves has capabilities of ren- 
dering gifts which would minister not only to our 
own advancement but also to the happiness of our 
fellows. We have no title to sit down upon it in 
sloth ; the penalty of a disregard of the laws of the 
Creator must inevitably follow such a course; and it 
is the duty of a government to avert this consequence 
by rendering the gratification of the propensity de- 
pendent on the strict fulfilment of the duties which 
it involves. 

The position of the negro, and the way in which 
in his case this doctrine is to be applied, is very 
simple. He has been unjustly brought into the 
condition he now occupies through violence perpe- 
trated either upon himself or his progenitors, and he 



lb 



has consequently an incontestable right to demand 
at any time to be restored to the state whence he was 
so iniquitously removed. No social laws, therefore, can 
properly be enforced against him until the best atone- 
ment within reach has been offered for this original 
sin, and which must consist in giving him the option of 
living in that country which he is entitled to consider 
his own, and where he would now have existed but 
for our misdeeds. When this offer has been made, 
and the acceptance of it refused, he becomes at once 
and for the first time a voluntary member of our 
community, and, of course, bound to submit to every 
law which we may adopt ; it being at the same time 
incumbent on the Government that such laws shall 
be entirely consistent with the enjoyment on his part 
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

The plain course of duty, then, is at once to set 
him free, and to give him the option of a passage 
to Africa; intimating to him that if he prefers to 
remain where he is, so far from being permitted to 
live in idleness or in the habitual indulgence of 
any other vice, such laws will be adopted with regard 
to him as may seem best calculated to promote his 
own advancement and his general usefulness to so- 
ciety. Upon the condition of obedience to these 
laws the consent on the part of the Government to 
his remaining should distinctly depend, and banish- 
ment should consequently be the penalty for their 
infringement. 

Now, after what is known of the intense attachment 



76 

of the negro to his accustomed home, no matter on 
what continent that home may be,--after the in- 
effectual efforts that have been witnessed both in 
the British possessions and in America, by means of 
bribery, fraud, and persecution, to induce him, when 
it has been needed, to quit the soil to which he has 
become attached, it cannot be believed for one moment 
that if set free in the United States he would select 
transportation to Africa rather than consent to the 
condition of continuing an amount of labour equal 
to that which he had executed during slavery, — an 
amount which, in a state of liberty, would be less 
than half of what he might with ease perform. Let 
this condition, therefore, be enforced, and all danger 
of the negro becoming less useful in freedom than in 
slavery w r ould be at once removed.* 

By a step of this kind, then, it is in the power 
of the United States to comply at once with that 
point of the moral law which requires that no parley 
should be held with sin. They have only to recog- 
nize the iniquity of slave-holding, and they may cast 
it off to-morrow. A little examination will show that 
by the plan now stated, not only would the great 

* In some of the older West India islands, where the coloured 
population is comparatively dense, the negroes, in order to obtain 
subsistence, find it necessary to perform an amount of work equal to 
their work as slaves. Yet, although instead of the alternative of a 
voyage to Africa, they have the power of merely removing to a 
neighbouring island, in order, by a tenth part of the labour, to 
attain the same profit, they are not only contented, but for the 
most part desirous to remain. 



i i 

objects of maintaining the prosperity of the country 
and the progress of the negro be accomplished, but 
— such is the harmony of just and natural legislation 
— it would also, in its practical arrangements, present 
full means, to the minutest fraction, of affording com- 
pensation to the proprietors. 

And first, as to the practical part of the plan, so far 
as it is to provide for the enforcement of continued 
industry. It is of course to be understood that the 
negro is to be set entirely at liberty, Avith the world 
before him where to choose his dwelling-place ; nay, 
more, that he should have the option of a free passage 
to Africa, so soon as arrangements could be made to 
that effect. But if, as assuredly would be the case, 
he should cling to his present home in preference to 
Africa, it must be an imperative condition of his remain- 
ing in the United States that he shall pursue such a 
course as will prove consistent with his own happiness 
and the general happiness of the people ; that amongst 
an industrious race, actively using their various talents, 
it shall not be a permission to him alone to live in open 
disregard of the duty of contributing by the best exer- 
cise of his powers to the common weal. To gain the 
privilege of remaining he will, of course, accede to the 
condition; but his promise would soon be broken, 
unless means could be taken constantly to enforce it. 
To effect this, imprisonment would obviously be useless, 
and personal inflictions would be still more objection- 
able ; the former would be disregarded by the indolent, 
and the latter would only debase and harden both the 



78 

sufferer and bis judge, while each alike would prove 
more or less inconsistent Avith the Christian code. 
Indolence is a peculiarity of his race, and if those 
amongst whom he desires to live cannot overcome this 
peculiarity by just and humane treatment, all that 
they are entitled to do is to forbid him to remain, 
and to banish him to the country in which alone he 
can rightfully claim a residence. This penalty, there- 
fore, is the only one that can legitimately be used ; but 
as it has been found in all countries to be the most 
severe, and such as, in the case of the negro, would be 
more terrible than death itself, it would prove amply 
sufficient for its object. It should, therefore, constantly 
be kept before his eyes as the immediate consequence of 
disobedience. 

Towards this end a general registration of the co- 
loured population should be effected, and an amount 
of labour equal to the average labour of a slave should 
be fixed as the daily " task" of each. At the end of 
every three or six months the negro should be re- 
quired to deliver or to transmit to an officer, ap- 
pointed by the Government for that purpose, a cer- 
tificate or certificates from the employer whom he 
may have served, of his having performed the required 
amount of labour (of course bodily infirmity would 
prove an exemption) during the specified period ; fail- 
ing in which, he should be declared liable to deporta- 
tion. Further details as to any grace which might be 
allowed after such failure, when the full consequences 
of his course were presented to him, and when he 



7!) 

might desire an opportunity of amendment, need not 
be considered here : he might perhaps be permitted 
in a second three months to make up the defalcation 
in the first, or he might be received on probation at 
some Government dep6t, and allowed an opportunity, 
by employment at road-making, or in some other 
manner, of working the required time and averting 
his sentence. Forbearance of this kind, however, 
should have well-defined limits, and, as an example 
to others, a second offence should be followed by his 
immediate departure. 

But although it will be seen that by this means the 
industry of the country will be kept up to its present 
amount, we must be careful to avoid a fallacy which 
found a prominent place in the debates of the British 
Parliament, viz. : that if you do not take away the la- 
bourer from the soil, his former proprietor can have no 
claim for compensation for the loss of his services. It 
is true, when the supply of labour remains the same, 
if the slaves upon emancipation quit their master, he 
can easily supply their place by others, and at a rate 
of wages not exceeding his previous outlay ; but, under 
these circumstances, what takes place 1 During the 
old system, in order to cultivate an estate an outlay 
of capital was required to purchase the requisite num- 
ber of hands, and this outlay was, of course, so much 
to be taken off the value of the land. If a certain 
number of acres required an outlay of 1000 dollars 
to render them profitable, a person in purchasing those 
acres would not give so much for them by 1000 dol- 



80 

lars as he would give if no such outlay was necessary. 
If, therefore, you set the negroes free, and upon terms 
which shall not raise their wages beyond the cost of 
maintaining slaves, you increase the value of each 
estate by just so much as it would have taken to stock 
it with a sufficient supply of labourers. In Antigua, 
where, owing to the comparative density of the po- 
pulation, the price of labour is not raised above its 
cost in slavery, Sir William Colebrooke, the Governor- 
General, informed Air. Gurney that "at the lowest 
computation, the land, without a single slave upon it, 
is fully as valuable now as it was, including all the 
slaves, before emancipation. 

Now, if every slave-owner were a land-owner to a 
proportionate extent, this might cause no injury, 
because the rise in the value of the one would com- 
pensate for the loss of the capital laid out on the 
other ; but, as this is not the case, — many persons 
holding slaves without an acre of land, while others 
hold land without slaves, — a manifest injustice would 
arise. The increased value of the land would be 
caused solely by the presence of available labourers, 
the procuring and raising of whom had been entirely 
effected by the capital of the slave-owner ; and, as 
this additional value would precisely amount to the 
market price of what is at jiresent looked upon as his 
property, it is clear that out of his pocket would come 
every dollar that the land-owner might gain. 

In order to prevent this, and to avert all disturb- 
ance of the present relations of capital, a very obvious 



81 

plan presents itself. Let each person granting cer- 
tificates of the employment of negroes be required 
to use annually for each a Government stamp, say, for 
example, to the amount of thirty-two dollars, and to 
each proprietor of a slave at the date of emancipation 
let there be given a deed of exemption (to be called a 
compensation deed) from the use of such stamp. Es- 
timating the value of a slave at 500 dollars, the yearly 
interest upon this at 6 per cent, would amount to 
thirty dollars ; and in order that the marketable 
nature of his slave property might still attach to 
the " compensation deed," by which it is represented, 
the holder should have the power of transferring his 
right of exemption either temporarily or permanently 
to others. As no one would be able to employ a 
negro without paying thirty-two dollars per annum, or 
the possession of one of these deeds, the annual market 
value of the privilege they convey could never, under 
any natural circumstances, fall below thirty or thirty- 
one dollars, because it would always be desirable for 
an employer to purchase at that price exemption from 
the stamp, and consequently the market value of the 
deed itself would stand at 500 dollars. By this 
arrangement, therefore, the proprietor Avould receive 
full compensation, and the price of land would remain 
undisturbed, — since each person buying an estate 
would reckon as at present, that it Avould cost him 
500 dollars, or the annual interest of that sum for 
every labourer whom he might employ to work it.* 

* Of course, in carrying out this plan, it would be essential not 

G 



82 

The final absorption of the compensation deeds thus 
created would take place at no distant day; as the 
negroes, by the influence of a well-regulated freedom, 
gradually attained to respectability and competence, 
certificates would be purchased by individuals amongst 
them desirous of getting rid of the necessity of speci- 
fied labour. Such purchases would be analogous to any 
other investment, and would, in fact, supposing the 
compensation due to the proprietor had been trans- 
ferred, as in Antigua, to the land, be the same as if 
they had purchased so much real estate. The annual 
income derivable from such estate will be represented 
by the artificial increase to the value of their labour, 
if they choose to work ; and in the event of their 
living upon their savings, it will be represented by 
the exemption from that taxation which property must 
have borne if they had been suffered to live in idle- 
ness on any other terms.* 

to lose sight of the difference of value arising from sex, age, &c. ; 
but as no difficulty would arise from this circumstance, it is enough, 
in this place, to indicate the general principle. 

To promote the convenience of the holders, the deeds of exemp- 
tion might be transferable with quarterly or half-yearly coupons 
attached, which could be forwarded to the Government offices 
along with the labour certificates, in lieu of the stamp they must 
otherwise bear. Supposing the holder had not employed any 
labour during the period, he would of course dispose of them in the 
market to those who had. 

* These regulations regarding labour should also apply to the 
coloured population already free; but, as in selling, or in voluntarily 
granting emancipation, their owners gave up to them the amount 
which, under a system for the due maintenance of industry, would 



83 

It may appear to some, at first sight, that if the 
above plan were carried out, although the supply 
of labour would remain the same, the rate of wages 
would rise, owing to the efforts of the planters to 
outbid one another. But this is impossible. In pur- 
chasing their estates, in expending money on them, 
and in paying for their negroes, the planters gave 
a price which, after calculating the cost of slave 
maintenance, would afford them just a reasonable 
profit, compared with the profit to be derived from other 
investments. In order to continue this profit, then, 
it is out of the question that they can afford to pay 
more in the shape of wages, because they could get no 
return for such additional payment. The increase of 
wages in the West Indies was made up by the rise in 
the price of produce ; but no such rise could take place 
in the United States, because the price depends entirely 
on the supply, and the supply would not be lessened 
as it was in the British colonies. If therefore one 
planter should outbid another in the rate of wages 
for the sake of obtaining a larger share of negro labour, 
(offering more for the " tasks " of the negroes than 
is at present paid for them in the shape of food, 
clothing, &c.,) he would cease to derive a remu- 
nerating profit, and must soon run into insolvency. 

then have been transferred to the land, it would be proper that the 
stamp duty accruing from this source should be applied solely for 
their benefit; — in the establishment, for instance, of educational, 
religious, or other institutions, as might be deemed advisable. 



84 

It is plain from the foregoing considerations that it 
is in the power of the United States to turn from the 
sin of slavery, not only without even temporary damage 
to any worldly interest, but with the assurance of an 
increased prosperity. The half-time labour (for it 
would not amount to more) of the free coloured popu- 
lation would soon be voluntarily extended, and by 
every hour so gained the wealth of the country and 
the value of its soil would be proportionably increased. 

Before dismissing these suggestions, I must not omit 
to mention a difficulty — the only one present to my 
mind — which, although slight in its nature, might be 
alleged as likely to interfere with their success. Those 
who may be disposed to concede at once the utter 
improbability of the American negro preferring trans- 
portation to Africa, to comfort, protection, and freedom 
in his native land, will still, perhaps, point to the 
West Indies, and remind us that although he may, in 
the first instance, be landed in Africa, he would soon 
find that he had it in his power to quit that continent 
for the British colonies ; that his passage would be 
eagerly provided by active agents, and that represen- 
tations would be industriously made to him of the 
luxurious indolence which he would there be permitted 
to enjoy. I do not believe that these representations 
would have the effect desired, because we have already 
seen that the negroes will not purchase exemption 
from toil at a cost of a sacrifice of home, even when 
the removal is only to a neighbouring colony ; but it 



85 

is, nevertheless, desirable that their influence should 
be prevented. To this end it may be assumed that 
the British Government (supposing them unable to 
devise means of bringing their colonies to a healthy 
condition) would readily undertake to prohibit the 
introduction into these possessions of immigrants 
transported to Africa from the United States. Despite 
the defective plans of their statesmen, it cannot be 
doubted that the people of England are sincere in their 
abhorrence of slavery ; and we may therefore fairly 
hope that they are not destined to the humiliation of 
finding that, instead of being the leaders of emancipa- 
tion, they form the only impediment to its course. 

To conclude. It will perhaps be asked by those 
who have paid attention to the general tenor of my 
views, if there is not, some contradiction to the doc- 
trine maintained in them throughout— that sin is in- 
variably the parent of disaster — in a plan Avhich 
claims to abolish slavery in the United States without 
inflicting the slightest suffering ; and if it is not dan- 
gerous to assert that a crime so grievous can be sud- 
denly cast off, and, with it, all apprehension of the 
judgments of the Creator \ I reply, that those judg- 
ments have already fallen, and that the immediate 
effect of a sincere repentance will be, not to wipe out 
the penalties thus far incurred, but to avert those 
which must, with every day's continuance of evil, 
inevitably accumulate, — penalties which, although 
unseen in their approach, are foreknown by those who 



8G 

trust in the justice of Heaven, and are not less present 
to them as things that must be, when the wrong-doer 
stands boastingly in the glare of success, than when 
the threatenings of his failing fortunes may be dis- 
tinctly heard. In the degrading terror avowed at the 
consequences of granting freedom to the negro — in the 
self-condemning caution with which the approach of 
knowledge, the common foe of tyrants, is barred from 
his mind — in the impatience of contradiction which, 
even among equals, renders the bowie-knife an argu- 
ment — in the absence of steady enterprise and provi- 
dent cultivation — in the misgivings which, amidst 
every boast of national power, tell of three millions 
of enemies, — enemies that might have been friends, 
clustered on the soil — and in that wilful deadening 
of the moral sense which, manifested first in a denial 
of the primary right of humanity, ends in a reckless 
repudiation of every other claim, the penalties of 
slavery past and present are sufficiently unfolded. 
When to these we add that the " Union," which might 
have formed a type of the eventual brotherhood of 
nations, is rendered insecure and soulless ; that in its 
legislative halls even the right of petition is denied, 
and that liberty, as she dwells in the land of Wash- 
ington, is made a bye-word and a jest to distant regions 
of the earth, the conviction rises that the future can 
have little more of warning to impart, and that if 
America— reckless that the responsibility and peril of 
sin increases with the light bestowed — continues to 



87 

cling, amidst the spreading radiance of Christianity, to 
the darkest barbarism that ever disgraced the world, 
the hour of her severest doom must rapidly approach. 
That this doom may be averted, and that she may yet 
gain the course to which she once seemed destined, 
will be the earnest prayer of all who faithfully seek 
the advancement of mankind. 






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